Our
Story.
How a fisherman's frustration with the seafood industry became a mission to connect small-boat producers with the consumers who care where their food comes from.
“The person who catches the fish should be able to look the person who eats it in the eye.”
Salmon, halibut, sablefish — small-boat operations out of Sitka & Kodiak.
Built a direct-to-consumer supply chain for Midwest households. Learned what traceability looks like in practice.
Early experiments with on-chain harvest data; informed the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability standards.
Education, storytelling, and civic engagement across the seafood supply chain.
The Fisherman Behind
Pacific Cloud
Ryan Horwath didn't start Pacific Cloud Seafood in an office. He started it on the water — commercial fishing in Alaska, hauling gear in conditions that most people only see in documentaries.
After years working with Sitka Salmon Shares, one of the country's leading community-supported fishery programs, Ryan saw firsthand the disconnect between the fishermen doing the work and the consumers who wanted to support them. The supply chain was opaque, the labeling was misleading, and small-boat operators were being squeezed out by industrial fleets.
Pacific Cloud Seafood is Ryan's answer to that problem. Not a bigger boat or a better marketing campaign — but a platform built on transparency, education, and direct connections between the people who catch your seafood and the people who eat it.
Based in Buffalo, NY with roots in Alaska's fishing grounds, Pacific Cloud bridges the gap between where seafood is caught and where it's consumed — putting faces, stories, and accountability behind every piece of fish.
The barrier was never the technology. It was the gap between what the tools could do and what the people on the boat actually knew about them.
Historic New York · Seneca Country
From Kodak
to Kodiak
My disdain for all things corporate-consolidated came early.
Working at Kodak through a temp agency really put the nail in the coffin for any dreams of climbing some corporate ladder. The wage was barely above minimum and I had to work a year before I got any paid vacation. The job was brutal — close to 100°F in the photo-chemical bottling division. The bottles we were filling said do not breathe vapors. I asked the line operator how we were supposed to do that when we were the ones filling them. He said: “Don't worry kid, you'll get used to the headaches.”
“I don't want to get used to the headaches” — that's what I thought.
One memory still stains: pouring cases of photo chemicals down the drain because we'd mislabeled almost an entire batch. I asked where the drain went. The operator explained that “the Genesee River filters all this stuff out.” I said out loud — I am never going swimming in Lake Ontario ever again. Truth is that stuff had been going on for years, on a major scale, all in the name of shareholder profits.
What I liked about Sitka Salmon Shares was that some of the company's shareholders were the fishermen themselves. That changed everything for me. Pacific Cloud is what came next: a way to make a living in a healthy and honest trade — and bring that same accountability home to Western New York.
Some of the shareholders were the fishermen themselves. That changed everything for me.
Where the story begins
The cold, clean waters of the North Pacific produce some of the finest wild seafood on earth. Our fishermen work them with respect — for the fish, the ecosystem, and the communities that depend on them.
The Farmers Market
Connection
Before Pacific Cloud had a website, it had a farmers market table. Ryan started selling wild Alaska seafood at markets in Buffalo — standing behind a cooler of fish, talking to every single customer who walked up.
Those conversations changed everything. People didn't just want good fish — they wanted to know who caught it, where it came from, and how it was handled. They asked questions the seafood industry wasn't designed to answer:
“Who's the fisherman?”
“What boat was this on?”
“How fresh is it really?”
The farmers market proved something important: consumers are ready for transparency. They want the connection. They want to look someone in the eye and know the story behind their food. The industry just hasn't made it easy.
That direct, face-to-face accountability became the blueprint for everything Pacific Cloud does — bringing the farmers market experience to every piece of seafood we sell, whether it's shipped across the country or picked up down the street.
The People We Stand With
Pacific Cloud is the work of a movement, not a company. These are the programs, platforms, and standards bodies that make traceable, small-boat seafood possible.
Producers, standards bodies,
and advocates
Reach out to explore how we can collaborate on traceability, education, and the future of small-boat seafood.
Get In Touch