the ocean cluster initiative
Making local seafood easier to find and buy.
Our Mission
The Oregon Coast Visitors Association (OCVA) is taking a lead role in re-localizing our food systems on the Oregon coast and supporting efforts to keep more local seafood in our communities, through their Oregon Cluster Initiative (OCI), which focuses on enhancing the use of local sustainable seafood in small businesses through infrastructure investments, workforce training, and partnership development. OCI is already partnering with a diversity of nearly a dozen entities who share the vision to improve local seafood access to local markets, impacting fishermen, processors, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers.
Oregon’s coast has long been regarded as home to robust and productive fisheries, yielding high quality sustainable seafood while maintaining a local family-based fishing industry. However, over 90% of seafood sold in restaurants, food stores, and institutions is sourced from other distant domestic and international markets, indicating that the high quality seafood harvested from the Oregon coast is bypassing local markets. Oregon Travel Impacts: 2003 – 2021, Dean Runyan Associates shows in 2019 visitors spent $840 million USD on food services and food stores. The Oregon Coast Visitors Association (OCVA) estimates that at least 30% of this total spending ($252 million) is immediately lost to economic leakage annually; and seafood imports account for a substantial portion of this leakage.
Who is ocva?
The OCVA is the official Regional Destination Management Organization for the entire Oregon Coast as designated by the Oregon Tourism Commission, and recognized as a 501c(6) by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In this unique role, OCVA has the honor of leveraging our industry’s network to benefit Oregon’s rural coastal communities by aligning partnerships to share limited resources, highlight regenerative tourism, promote community resilience, and advance economic development through sustainable localized food systems. This includes engaging with all 8 coastal counties, 30+ incorporated cities, NGOs, and state and federal agencies to responsibly use the natural resources that make Oregon's coast unique.
“Oregon’s fisheries are the lifeblood of our coastal and tourism economies—supporting jobs that families rely on, and supplying communities across our state and around the world with exceptional products and experiences.
As we continue to recover from the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we must ensure that this crucial industry receives the support it needs to survive and provide for Oregonians and consumers around the country. I’m thrilled the USDA has recognized the important work the Oregon Coast Visitors Association Inc. does for both Oregon’s fishing and aquaculture industry, as well as our great state’s tourism industry. The grant OCVA has received will support its important work, helping to establish and strengthen the much-needed infrastructure for our fisheries to efficiently operate and thrive, and help our tourism industry bounce back stronger than ever.”
— Senator Jeff Merkley
ocean cluster initiative
Project Lead: Oregon Coast Visitors Association
Project Duration: Sep. 30, 2021 - Sep. 30, 2024
“Capturing Value by Keeping Local Seafood Local: Expanding Regional Distribution Networks and Support for Seafood and Aquaculture Producers on the Oregon Coast”
Funding Sources: USDA Local Food Promotion Program and Travel Oregon Regional Cooperative Tourism Program
Funding for this project was made possible by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service through grant [21LFPPOR1029-00]. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the USDA.
Objective 1: Add Value
Add value to locally harvested Oregon seafood and aquaculture products through support of the newly emerging Ocean Cluster Incubator program and facility in Newport, Oregon to assist with coastal COVID response and recovery efforts. This project will benefit and encourage the development of value-added seafood and aquaculture products in our region.
Objective 2: Increase Availability
Increase availability of Oregon seafood and aquaculture products by coordinating Regional Distribution Networks and Market Channels in collaboration with the Oregon Food Hub Network. This objective focuses on investigating and implementing more cost-effective means of transportation for food supply chains through backhaul, route optimization, and/or other operational efficiencies.
Objective 3: Strengthen Capacity
Strengthen capacity of Oregon food system partners to cultivate the regional economy through mid-tier value chain coordination. This objective will create a Project Coordination Team which will ensure that Objectives 1 and 2 above are in alignment with other regional work, with an emphasis on developing tools, techniques or practices that can be rapidly adopted by neighboring regions and beyond.
