"We're still in the developing stages, (but) it's been really positive so far, and we hope it continues to grow," said Scott Blake, one of the fishermen owners. "We think there's a lot of potential to sell finished product in Asia and also to bring (fish processed there) back here."

Since last year, the company's overall sales have increased 40 percent, and of 11.5 million pounds of seafood sold so far this year, about 4 million pounds has gone to overseas markets, he said.

Blake, like many entrepreneurs seeking overseas markets for Alaska products, said doing business in Asian markets is more about building relationships and trust than spending a lot of money. It involves a lot of travel back and forth, meeting frequently with business contacts in China and Korea, touring facilities there, and showing facilities in Alaska to visitors.

China and Korea are relatively new customers when compared to Japan, which has a long history of buying Alaska seafood. Developing relationships is slow, but the payoff is getting bigger every year, Blake said.

In China and Korea, Copper River Seafood sales of wild Alaskan seafood have mainly been in commodities, with the buyer further processing and repackaging the fish, he said.

Some of that fish, repackaged in Korea as portions with the bones and skin removed, is purchased back by Copper River Seafoods, Blake said.

"What we buy back from Korea we sell into retail and food service markets," he said. "We are in the real preliminary stages of that."

The practice of repurchasing seafood in reprocessed portions is making for good relationships in the marketplace, he said. Some of those portions are also headed to retail markets in Korea.

In Korea, Copper River Seafoods predominantly supplies larger food companies.

"We are working on retail-ready and whole sockeye fillets, and halibut and coho salmon fillets for high-end restaurant chains," Blake said.

The company is also finding Asian markets for black cod.

The overseas markets for Copper River Seafoods, with offices in Anchorage and Cordova, stemmed from the company bringing fish to Asia for reprocessing because it was simply more cost-effective.

"They do everything, right down to the packaging," Blake said.

The toughest part was building relationships that developed trust on both sides, a time-consuming process. Blake said his firm got a break when a Japanese customer who had the right connections helped introduce Copper River products in China.

But the time and energy are worth the effort, and could eventually open doors for other markets. For certain species, like pink salmon, there is a great potential for overseas markets, he said.

"Alaska pink salmon is a great, great product, one of the most undervalued protein resources in the world. It's a quality fish, the most sustainable fishery that we have, as far as supplying the market goes."

Inquiries for Copper River products are also flowing from Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan and Malaysia, he said. And in Northern European markets, sales have been helped by a growing understanding of the potential harm of farmed salmon, and the benefits of wild salmon, he said.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaska