With support from the Reinvestment Fund's HFFI Food Access and Retail Expansion Fund, BBRSDA is launching a planning project to identify where cold chain, aggregation, and distribution investments can make the biggest difference in expanding access to Bristol Bay sockeye salmon for Tribal communities across Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. BBRSDA will lead the project in partnership with SeaShare, a national nonprofit that distributed 1.7 million pounds of seafood last year, and regional Native organizations.

Bristol Bay produces the world's largest sockeye salmon run, yet reliable access to that fish remains out of reach for many of the Native communities most tied to it — in part because existing distribution networks and cold chain infrastructure remain fragmented and underserved. This planning project will identify opportunities to close those gaps through community-driven planning.

The planning phase will involve community needs assessments, infrastructure mapping, feasibility analysis, and financial modeling — ultimately producing a roadmap that identifies 3 to 5 priority communities and the specific investments needed to reach them. The goal is an implementation-ready package that positions the project for implementation funding.

We're hiring a technical assistance contractor.

To move this work forward, we're issuing a Request for Proposals for a qualified contractor to lead the feasibility analysis, needs assessments, infrastructure mapping, and financial modeling that will form the backbone of the planning effort. If your organization has experience in food systems, supply chain infrastructure, or community development in Indigenous or rural contexts, we'd like to hear from you.

The deadline to submit is 6/23/26 at 11:59 PM PT.

See the links below for the formal Request for Proposals, Scope of Work, and Proposal Submission Form:

Request for Proposals

Scope of Work

Proposal Submission Form

Thank you to our partners at the Reinvestment Fund and USDA Rural Development for making this work possible.