Company
Family-owned since 1966.
From a Kitsilano fish counter to a vertically integrated seafood company spanning British Columbia, Alberta and Alaska — still family-owned, still obsessed with fish.
1966
A fish market in Kitsilano
John Heras — lovingly called Papou by all nine (and counting) of his grandchildren — opens a neighbourhood fish market near the Vancouver waterfront, with his father, his brother and his brother-in-law all pitching in. A family business from the very first day.
1974
The Ladner plant
John's baby — and the place where he became Big John. 7 Seas turns producer, offloading boats, processing and boxing fish right on the Fraser River, much like our Alaskan operation does today.
1998
The changing of the guard
George — the oldest of John's sons, full time in the business since 1995 — begins taking the helm. The whole second generation grew up working summers at the counter and on the docks, and one by one they came aboard for good: Mike in 2000, James in 2008, Nick in 2012.
2009
The move to Richmond
George leads the move from Ladner into a retrofitted 30,000-square-foot Richmond facility built to the highest levels of food safety — and ready to ship globally.
2016
Back to the source, in Alaska
A strategic opportunity seized: the Alaskan Fish Factory in Homer joins the group — offloading, primary processing, direct fishermen relationships and quota on Cook Inlet.
2017
East to Edmonton
Growth heads east as 7 Seas Alberta opens in Edmonton, extending distribution across Northern Alberta, Calgary, Saskatchewan and the Yukon.
Today
A vertically integrated seafood company
110+ people in Richmond, a regional operation in Edmonton, the original market in Kitsilano and the Alaskan Fish Factory — one family company, integrated from dock to delivery.
What hasn't changed
Sixty years on, 7 Seas is still a family company. The scale is different — trucks running day and night, fish landing at our Homer facility, product shipping to more than ten export countries — but the job is the same one it was at the Kitsilano counter: know the fish, stand behind it, and take care of the people who buy it.
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