SEATTLE -- It goes without saying that the supermarket business is competitive. But never is this more apparent than on a single day in early May, when Northwest-area retailers prepare for the annual Copper River salmon race.
Rick Cavanaugh, seafood director of Queen Anne Thriftway in Seattle, hopes to make it a third annual win when the race to bring home the first Copper River, Alaska, King salmon begins May 13 at 7 p.m.
Copper River has the first big wild salmon run of the year and there's been a hot contest for a decade now to get the first King salmon back to Seattle, a mere 1,100 miles south.
"It used to be mostly a restaurant promotion," said Cavanaugh. "We've been in it the past three years. The first year we tied and the next two, we won."
The contest kicks off Cavanaugh's biggest seafood promotion of the year, the Copper River salmon sale, which last year sold "tons" of Kings for his store.
"Last year, other supermarket chains from the Seattle area showed up at Copper River with TV news crews," Cavanaugh recalled. "I was carrying these bomb-proof camera cases. It's a very tiny town up there, so everyone sees everyone else. People were wondering what I was up to."
They soon found out. The cases housed a digital camera and a laptop computer. Cavanaugh was broadcasting the chain's efforts live on the Internet, taking pictures, writing up the opening of the fishery and showing the spectacular, glacial scenery of Copper River.
Cavanaugh contracted with a fisherman who agreed to fish for an hour and a half, then rush the first fish to the dock, where Cavanaugh scooped it up and drove madly to a waiting twin-engine plane. The chartered plane took him -- and the prize -- to Anchorage, where he caught a commercial jetliner.
"We were in Seattle at 6 in the morning. We're the Chicago Bulls of the salmon race," he said.
"It's very competitive. The local media was getting so many press releases from people who said they had the first fish, that the radio station said 'Uh uh. The finish line is right here,' " Cavanaugh explained.
That's why early in the morning, first fish in hand, Cavanaugh appeared live on the biggest radio station in Seattle last May. He stopped in for a live TV spot, too.
Anyone interested in checking whether Queen Anne wins the big Copper River fish-off can check the Web at: www.thriftway.com.
