Wildly Better Seafood
Hissho has proudly been in partnership with family-owned seafood distributor, Bornstein Seafoods, since 2022. They help deliver sustainable and national wild-caught shrimp to our customers using sustainable fishing practices for local, wild-caught seafood.
Bornstein has been one of the pioneers of wild caught seafood since opening in Oregon in 1934. Their united but diverse team deeply cares for the species, partnerships, customers, and the product and are fully traceable for responsible sourcing practices.
Meet the Bornstein Team
About Bornstein Seafoods
How did Bornstein become a leader in the seafood industry?
“Kyle, Colin and Andrew Bornstein are brothers and third generation seafood processors in the pacific northwest. Their grandfather started Bornstein Seafoods in 1934 in Bellingham Washington during the great depression and expanded to Oregon in 1980.
Today in 2023, there are three factories in Washington and Oregon. Bornstein processes all seafood from cold water shrimp, salmon, crab, albacore tuna, and groundfish (cod, sole, rockfish). The Oregon Cold Water Shrimp Fishery was the first certified sustainable shrimp fishery in the World by the Marine Stewardship Council.”
How did Bornstein and Hissho Sushi begin their working relationship?
“2 years ago, a perfect fit from the start. Bornstein is looking to introduce more responsibly sourced shrimp to new customers and Hissho was the perfect partner to expand with all the locations across the U.S.”
How does Bornstein ensure the quality and freshness of its seafood products?
“Quality and ensuring freshness of seafood is a 24-hour effort. It starts before the boat leaves the dock, making sure that the boat is properly clean and sanitized, seafood is all about time and temperature – lots of ice (there is never enough ice!) to keep all the seafood as cold as possible from the moment that it’s caught.
As the shrimp immediately comes off the boat, there are visual, sensory and temperature inspections on the entire offload to make sure that the product is properly chilled, and the tons are sent to the freezers before the product is cooked. Then to the cooker, and then the shrimp is sent in a chilled conveyer belt in the facility to lock in the color to make it a brighter and pinker shrimp. Then the shrimp is peeled to take the shell off, a visual inspection prior to freezing.
If approved, the frozen shrimp is packed and QC checks for samples every 30 minutes in each package throughout the day for size, glaze, and quality analysis. It takes a non-stop team to keep this process together.”
What sets your shrimp apart from other products in the market?
“We really try to compete with ourselves and create a better product every year. We know you can never stop learning. We love to meet other third-parties in the business from another country and share each other’s best practices and implement new strategies and quality processes to our own.”
How does Bornstein stay up to date on the latest industry trends?
“Engaging the marketplace of ideas, competitors, and customers. We believe our customers can teach us too and we challenge ourselves to honor their reviews and concerns.
We educate ourselves by going to tradeshows and stay up to date on the news media. There is the national cold water prawn forum where international stakeholders come together to talk about cold-water shrimp and share their knowledge.”
What is the biggest difference between wild-caught and farm-raised shrimp?
“Farm-raised you know genetics down to a science. It is a warm water shrimp and can be populated much faster than the cold-water shrimp (what it takes us to fish for in 3 years – you can fish for that amount in 1 year for farm-raised). Cold-water shrimp is slow growing. We want to harvest 2- and 3-year-olds. There are pros to both!
Ultimately, we should have more seafood consumption globally with both wild-caught and farm-raised diets. Americans consume 50-60 pounds of chicken a year per person and eating 16 to 17 pounds of seafood per year per person. We want to grow that number! The seafood carbon footprint is phenomenally smaller than the carbon footprint of all other proteins.”
What’s next? What’s the future of Bornstein look like?
“One of our mottos at Bornstein is “forever better”. We are constantly looking to improve whether it’s an energy savings program, water reduction program, or new sustainability machinery. We want to stay anchor members of our community that provides jobs from the fishing fleet and in-house employees.
As the world changes, we want to be nimble enough to change with it. If global warming moves the fish stocks around, we must learn and be flexible to work around nature.”
What is one thing you want the average customer to know about sustainability?
“When you rely your livelihood on the planet every single day, it matters. Fishermen are the first line of sustainability. We can’t risk over-harvesting our fish and have it collapse.”
Try Bornstein shrimp today with our Crunchy Shrimp Roll!
Responsibly sourced Bornstein spicy shrimp and cucumber wrapped in rice and nori. Topped with tempura crunch, Japanese BBQ sauce and spicy mayo.
When our customers buy a sushi roll with shrimp, they are supporting a U.S. based company that cares about sustainable fishing practices.
Bornstein Certifications
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