(warm music) - Welcome to At Issue.

I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Thank you so much for joining us for a discussion about Copi.

You've probably heard the word before, Asian carp, I know you've heard before.

We're going to talk about a transition and how Asian carp are marketed, and you'll be seeing it in restaurants sometime in the near future.

And to have that conversation, we have the president of Sorce Freshwater Company.

Roy Sorce is here.

- Thank you for joining us, Roy.

- Thank you.

- And Clint Carter also joins us.

Clint is the president of the Midwest Fisherman's Co-Op.

Clint, thank you for being with us on At Issue.

- Thank you.

- And so Roy, let's start with, where did the name Copi come from?

Because let's be honest, Asian carp clogging the Illinois River, Peoria lakes, a threat to the Great Lakes.

People immediately have this Asian carp.

So talk about the transition.

- Sure, the transition started with the state of Illinois, looking for a way to develop a positive mindset about these fish.

They wanted to change people's perception so that they would not recognize it any longer as Asian carp.

And they came up with a name through a marketing program and a team of individuals out of Chicago.

They came up with a name after a survey called Copi, which means copious, in abundance, is how they came up with the name.

- And Copi, C-O-P-I.

- C-O-P-I, yes.

- And so you started in July of 2020?

- That's correct.

- What possessed you to say this is something because this is a new industry, may I use the term?

- Yes it is, it's a startup industry.

- What possessed you to take a chance on this?

- It was a interesting situation.

Our business was transitioning at that time and we were looking for other opportunities.

I had met two fishermen, Dave and Clint, the president and secretary treasurer of the Midwest Fish Co-Op and we sat down, had a conversation about what could be done with these fish.

And it intrigued me.

I thought these are an under underutilized fish.

These are a fish that have a market that has not been developed yet and could be utilized in a positive manner as opposed to that negative connotation of Asian carp.

- Clint, what was the main argument you made to Roy?

- We just explained all the opportunities and all the uses for the fish and with his location and logistics, 'cause we needed a place to send our fish.

So we gave him the whole spiel.

We were basically salesman.

We needed a place to take our fish and I think we sold them on it.

- But you've been a fisherman for quite some time.

- Yeah.

- Had you been fishing for Asian carp prior to that?

And what were you doing with the Asian carp?

- Pretty much since the Asian carp came in, I've been kind of focused on 'em.

I mean, since my early days, we've worked with different places.

I've been a big advocate.

I've done a lot of them cooking shows and stuff with DNR before, advocating to them, hey, we can use this.

We can control 'em, so more, I guess, more talk and now it's more action.

- DNR, Department of Natural Resources for the state.

- Yep.

- So the state has helped in developing the Copi name.

In fact, the state has the trademark?

- That is correct.

So the state trademarked the name Copi in hopes that in the near future or distant future, depending on how it works out, that these fish will be renamed as Copi, as opposed to the Asian carp they're referred to now, as far as FDA is concerned.

- And so the FDA has not given the final approval to the name Copi?

- That's correct.

And hopefully they will because that will help develop that market and create a positive association with Asian carp and that fish.

- So when you are selling or let me say, a restaurant is selling Copi, it says Copi on the menu?

- It can say Copi on the menu, yes.

It can say Copi sliders.

It can say Copi strips, Copi bites, whatever it may be, or whatever item they decide to use it in, yes.

- Well, let's take a look at what you're talking about, maybe that will help us here.

- Sure, no problem.

- And, and so the minced Copi is there.

And that's made into what you refer to as a slider, we might call it a Copi cake.

- [Roy] Correct.

- [H Wayne] And then you have on the top, those are strips?

- [Roy] Those are boneless strips.

They're difficult to make, but they are very, very tasty and extremely nutritious, but it's a very utilized product.

I mean that product could be made into several different items and it can be used in a very positive manner.

- [H Wayne] So let's talk about bones, carp are bony fish.

- [Roy] Yes.

- [H Wayne] Is there an issue with finding bones in Copi?

- [Roy] Not the way we process them.

The strips, we hand cut those and those are a boneless strip of white meat.

The other process we use to mince the product, we don't grind the bones.

We actually remove the bones from the protein so that when you get that minced product, it is a bone free, pure protein product, very healthy and very nutritious and delicious.

- And we'll talk about the flavoring in just a moment.

But I wanna ask Clint about catching these fish.

There's four types of Asian carp in the Illinois river.

- Yes, sir.

- How do you go about catching them?

How do you keep them fresh, how do you deliver them to Roy?

- Well, I have a big insulated box in my boat that'll hold about 10,000 pounds of fish.

We'll go to his plant in the morning, shovel a couple thousand pounds of ice in it.

Then we go out and we find a school of fish or we look at the current and wind and everything like that and go look for fish.

When we find it, we go set net around them and we start banging on the boat, making noise and then we check our net and hopefully we don't have to make a second set.

- So you fish with a net?

How much netting do you have out?

- In the summer, we're fishing about 2000 yards and some of the guys are fishing 3000 yards.

The fish move faster.

They're harder to catch in the summer and they're getting smarter, the more we're going after 'em.

So they're jumping over the net, they're going to the net, stopping, going backwards.

We have to set a net behind them and they're a schooling fish, so when we see the silvers, there's generally a lot of 'em in that area.

- And you bang on the boat?

- With baseball bats.

(laughs) - It just occurred to me, you may use the bat to hit a couple of them.

So, but you put them in the box, throw in ice, more fish, more ice?

- Yep, we throw the fish in, after we start pulling the net in, we'll pick 'em one by one, throw 'em in the box.

After we get so many in, we'll start shoveling ice on top of them.

- You don't pull in this 2000 yards of netting with fish in it by hand, do you?

- Not anymore, but I have a wheel, a hydraulic wheel, but it's still very labor intense and the wind will blow the net over.

So I mean, it has its own amount of problems.

We used to do it all by hand, pulling over, but this actually works a different set of muscles that it's different to get used to.

But yeah, hydraulic wheel, now that helps us.

- Once Clint pulls into your facility and your facility sits right on the river.

- Yes.

- He's catching several different types.

In fact, you're not even catching just carp, you have some other fish in there.

- Mm hmm.

- I mean, do you manually separate these out and have pricing for, there's different value to different fish?

- Yes, so when the fishermen come in, they have different species on every single boat and every single day they come in.

Clint may catch just Asian carp one day, he may catch a bunch of Buffalo the next day.

But overall, we take all of their fish every single day they bring them in and then we grade those fish.

As long as these fishermen use ice and take good care of their fish, they're considered usable for human consumption.

If there's issues where they don't use ice or the fish were in the net's too long or something, we may have to utilize those for other utilizations, which would be bait or fertilizer.

But our goal is to use every fish they bring in to be in a quality situation so we can use 'em for human consumption.

- Let's talk about bait and let's talk about fertilizer.

- Sure.

- Do you use for instance, for fertilizer, do you use a lower grade whole fish or do you take parts of the fish?

- For the fertilizer, normally we take the parts of the fish.

So we have a zero waste product.

We waste nothing at the facility.

Every part of that fish is utilized and we try to find the highest value of that fish and that fish part at any given time.

So there's internal organs in the fish called swim bladders that actually have a high value to them.

There's the roe, which is the eggs of the fish, which have a higher value for them than just fertilizer.

So we'll harvest those things, utilize those parts, the rest that we do not use for protein as you see there, we will utilize those for, then we go to fertilizer or the heads will be used for bait.

Sometimes the heads will be used for human consumption.

So it's just a matter of how we take care of them and what the market is on that particular day in that particular week.

- Let me back up, the heads are used for human consumption?

- Yes they are.

There's a big market for the heads with human consumption.

- In America ?

- In America, yes.

- What about exports?

- Exports?

We get phone calls on a very regular basis.

If we wanna ship all these fish out of the country today, we could ship every fish the fisherman catch for us on a weekly basis and not have anything utilized in the US, but that's not our goal.

- So you're not doing any export right now?

- We do a little bit of export, but we don't utilize all our fish for export.

We're just developing that market on a slower basis as opposed to shipping everything overseas.

- So we've talked about fertilizer, bait, human consumption with the different types of Copi.

Clint, what about pet treats?

- Pet treats.

These are great, these are freeze dried, pure protein.

- [H Wayne] Why don't you go ahead and show it to the camera there.

- Yeah, there we go.

So, I mean, these are human consumption so they can be used by people or pets and my dog really likes them.

My dog's actually kind of the poster guy for it, so.

- But I noticed on it, it says silver carp pet treats.

It doesn't say Copi.

- No, the pet treats, they don't want you to use the Copi brand on the pet treat.

'Cause they're trying to increase the value with human consumption.

Pet treats can be a lot of different things, a lot of byproducts and stuff mixed together.

So they're trying to get a direct message with the Copi.

- So silver carp for pet treats and then Copi for human consumption?

- Correct.

- We know that some fish have contaminants, mercury being one of the most discussed.

What is the concern over contaminants in Copi?

- It's interesting because Copi is the second healthiest fish you can eat.

The only healthier fish is wild caught salmon.

They are extremely high in nutrients, high in omega three, which is our heart healthy omegas, all nine essential amino acids, very high in protein, very high in iron and other minerals that are necessary for the human person.

The interesting part is the contaminants and mercury levels are so low in these fish because they are filter feeders that they are better than most, any other fish you can eat in the country, in the world actually.

- So is part of that due to the fact Clint, that we assume that these are voracious eaters.

They may be bottom feeding, but they're not bottom feeders?

- No they're filter feeders.

They filter planktons and throughout their gill plates.

So they just open their mouth and filter stuff that's suspended in the water, not through the bottom.

They jump out of the water too.

They're almost airborne, but their feeding habits, really, they're not eating other fish.

So that really helps 'em a lot.

- There in the past have been some concerns about the quality of the water in the Illinois River.

Is there any concern today about that with regard to the quality of Copi that's processed?

- Absolutely not.

So in the past, the Illinois River's had a bad name, I've heard about it throughout the industry, but a lot of things change with industry, the Clean Water Act, you have the pipe filled tiles, stopping the erosion.

You've had Zebra Muscles clean up the water.

Carp are actually brought here to be a natural wastewater cleaning tool.

So there's a lot of different things that are making the Illinois River look vibrant now.

And you're seeing everything look good right now.

- As you know, Roy, it takes time to change an image, the Illinois River, the Asian Carp name.

How is the process going for you right now?

I mean, this is not something you're gonna turn around overnight.

- No, but it's making definite leaps and bounds.

When we first started, it was a slow grow, a slow process.

They had a reputation of the type of fish they were, but they also weren't processed properly necessarily in the best manner.

We've developed processing methods with the help of Midwest Fish Co-Op and other processors to increase the value and the quality of these fish.

So even though it's been a slow grow process for the first year or so, it's now gaining a lot of popularity and there's a lot of interest in the restaurant industry, in the food industry, such as grocery stores, things like that, along with like you'd mentioned before the exporting side, but it's just becoming its own type of fish now.

It's not classified as that fish in the past where people didn't want to eat it.

- So can we find it in a grocery store?

- Hopefully very soon, hopefully by the end of this year.

- And what about restaurants, how widespread is it?

I mean, how many restaurants?

I don't mean it's not a specific number, but, I haven't seen Copi on a lot of menus.

- What's interesting is that it's spread out across the US.

There's probably oh, 30 or 40 restaurants that we actually sell product to, that we ship to across the US that are trying this product.

There are more and more every single week that are trying this product that are finding that there's a good quality fish that has a good message, it's good for the environment.

It's good for the economy and it's healthy to eat.

So it checks all the boxes.

You're not taking a product from the ocean or from other areas that is hard to replenish.

These fish, they like the calm, sustainable, but they replenish themselves on a very prolific rate.

- How many fish, Asian carp do you catch in a year let's say?

- Year, oh, me and my partner last year.

We're about 300,000 pounds between the two of us, but we're just part-time, the fishing's good.

I'm hoping to increase that number this year, when the fish slow down, you can really get around a lot more of them.

- So you process these fish in a variety of ways as you you've discussed, but there's four types of Asian carp in the Illinois River.

Can you use each one of them for Copi?

- Yes.

We utilize them in different manners.

The big head is the easiest to process into strips.

They have the most boneless protein available to harvest from those fish, but we still mince those and utilize them in a ground or a mince type fashion, I should say.

The silver carp because they are a smaller size fish in general, averaging about seven pounds each, we utilize those in our minced products to make the sliders, the patties, things like that, taco meat.

The grass carp we're actually utilizing in several different manners now.

They have the most widely accepted product as a whole fish, gutted or something, but we've utilized those in smoking them, 'cause they're a very good smoked fish and utilizing them as a smoked or in a dip of sort.

So you can use 'em on crackers and things like that.

The black carp, which is the most destructive in nature, is not very common in this area.

I've probably only seen a dozen since we've been processing for two years, but they are almost identical to a grass carp.

They just grow to be 120 pounds.

Their diet is exclusively clams and that's why they want them outta the water.

- Has the quality of the Illinois River, I'm not talking about water quality, but native fish quality, have you seen a change in the types of fish because you have a fish market in Springfield, so you sell more than just Copi.

- Absolutely.

- What have you seen in terms of a change over the years?

- Well, the catfish, the Buffalo are all striving now.

The sport fish are doing really well.

You see a lot more sport fishermen coming out there.

We see all kinds of other fish showing up in our nets that we release unharmed.

And so the biodiversity's looking really good.

We use site imaging so we can scan out a certain amount.

And there's not very much of that river that don't have a lot of fish and they're not all just Asian carp or silvers.

- And you've indicated that you're catching about 300,000 pounds a year?

You and your partner?

- Yeah.

- Do you have as president of the Fish Co-Op, do you have an idea of how many pounds of fish, your Asian carp, that everyone's catching in this area?

- Well, yeah, I would say in the last, since we started, probably 10 million pounds of Asian carp and I went out on a sane hall last year with a couple of fishermen that catch a lot and they caught 145,000 pounds in three days in the sane hall.

- Are we worried about overfishing carp?

And I don't know, there's some people saying, go ahead, take 'em all, but it would limit your industry if you did that.

Is there any concern over that?

- Not at all, that's our goal.

Our goal is at one point, this is all you'd catch, you throw 'em on the bank.

They're waste.

Now our goal is to fish 'em down.

Our gill nets are three to four inches.

So anything under three pounds is gonna go right through 'em, three or four pounds.

So we don't want to catch one or two pound fish, that's too much handling.

So we're not worried about it.

These fish come up from the Mississippi River in the spring when they spawn.

So, it pretty much replenishes our stock and we'll just keep fishing the bigger mesh.

Different parts of the world, they went down the one inch mesh, then they wiped their waters out, so.

- So we all know that there are efforts to try to electronically and other means to try to keep them outta the Great Lakes.

Is this helping in that regard?

- This has definitely helped put less pressure on those electronic nets.

As Clint mentioned, we've harvested about 10 million pounds since we've started, we can harvest 15 million pounds of these fish, out of the Peoria area, which I consider pretty much Bartonville up to Henry and maybe a little farther north, a year and not make a dent in the population.

If you go from Bartonville to Beardstown, we can harvest another 25 or 30 million pounds of these fish every year and not make a dent in the population.

- But you don't have the equipment to process that much fish.

- We do not now, but we were working on, there is equipment that exists.

It's very costly, but the more markets we develop to sell these products, the more we can bring in, the more equipment we can bring in, the more fish we can harvest.

- So are you selling whole fish to other processors?

- We do sell a lot of whole fish to other processors because they have markets also, and it is a multi-state or multi-area process.

You have to use more than one process to eliminate all these fish.

So one person can't do it all.

- How difficult is it to get restaurants on board?

- It's difficult from a standpoint of three things.

One is the marketability of the product.

Before they weren't familiar with how Asian carp could be utilized.

And from a standpoint of the protein source, the quality of it.

So it was more of educating them or teaching them that it is a good quality protein.

The other problem, I guess I should say, is the availability of these fish.

So we have a large availability, but getting them distributed to other restaurants around the area or in the state is a process also.

So the distributors have to be willing to carry this product and distribute that out.

And then the third thing is the price point.

Pre-pandemic, prices were very depressed on fish, especially freshwater fish.

Now that the pandemic's happened and everyone's gone through this process, it's a situation where markets have driven, have gone up and it makes this fish more viable in a depressed market like it is now.

- Is it fair to say that Copi doesn't have much flavor?

- Copi has very little flavor.

- Is that good or bad?

- From our standpoint, it's good.

When you eat salmon, you know you ate salmon.

When you've eaten other fish, you know.

- Tuna, I know I'm eating Tuna.

- Tuna, you know you're eating tuna and so does everyone else.

- And my cats do too.

- Exactly.

So from that standpoint, this fish, whatever you season it with is what it tastes like.

So it's a very mild, light in flavor fish.

If you want to taste taco seasoning, if you want to taste chipotle seasoning, if you want taste it, just to be salt and pepper, that's what it tastes like.

It's almost like a ground turkey, it has very little flavor or taste to it unless you add something to it.

- So do you market and sell Copi in your fish market in Springfield?

- Absolutely.

- What form is the best seller?

- The strips, breaded, fried, fish and chip type sandwich.

- Do you recommend a seasoning or a method of cooking when you sell the strips to the customer?

- Yeah, when we bread 'em, we have our own breading that we put on them.

So we sell our breading as well.

And it's got a lot of salt and pepper and garlic and different good things in it.

So we just put some seasoning in it because it'll be bland if you don't, if you just flour it, we use a pre-drip dredge for it, to make it a little crispier, holds that moisture in.

- And when you're cooking strips, you fry it?

- Absolutely.

Fried fish is the best, I think.

- Fish is the best and fried Copi is the best.

- Absolutely.

(overlapping chatter) - Roy Sorce of Sorce Freshwater Company, thank you so much for being with us on At Issue.

- Thank you.

- And Clint Carter, President of the Midwest Fisherman's Co-Op, I appreciate your presence.

- Thank you.

- And we appreciate your presence on At Issue.

Next time, we're going to be talking to the Israeli Deputy Consul General Daniel Aschheim, about the Middle East on the next At Issue.

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