Our Story & Place
The 7 Seas Story: From a Kitsilano Market to a Homer Dock
How a family fish market that opened in Vancouver in 1966 grew into a Pacific seafood company — and eventually to a processing plant on the Homer Spit.
Alaskan Fish Factory didn’t start in Alaska. It started with a fish market in Vancouver — and a family that’s been in seafood a lot longer than that.
A family that goes back to the sea
The Heras family comes from Skopelos, a Greek island with a long seafaring tradition. Earlier generations were merchant traders who moved goods by boat — a business built on seamanship, relationships, and reputation. That instinct for the sea and for doing things the right way carried across the Atlantic.
1966: a market on West 4th
In 1966, John Heras founded 7 Seas and opened the first market on West 4th Avenue in Kitsilano, Vancouver. The idea was simple and it stuck: sell seafood you’re proud of, treat people fairly, do things properly. That flagship market still stands in the same spot today.
Growing into a Pacific seafood company
Over more than 55 years, a neighborhood fish market grew into a full seafood operation — restaurant supply, wholesale distribution, importing and exporting, a processing and wholesale plant in Richmond, BC, and a presence in Alberta. For decades, much of the fish came from the Fraser River and other river systems across BC, Washington, and Alaska.
Moving to the source
7 Seas still draws from many regions, but Cook Inlet has become one of its most important sources of wild seafood. In late 2016, the family took over the long-term lease and operation of the Homer plant — now Alaskan Fish Factory — moving upstream to stand right where the fish is landed. (The plant sits on the city dock, on a long-term lease from the City of Homer.) After generations of buying and selling seafood downstream, it meant taking responsibility at the very start of the chain: receiving the catch, handling it, processing it, and building relationships with the fishermen who land it.
Still family-run, across two coastlines — the same standards from a Kitsilano counter to a Homer dock.
Part of the story behind our fish. More about the 7 Seas family on our About page.