Fishing for Success

Now in its fifth decade, Haring Catfish is still finding ways to compete in a global market

article by MICHAEL DEVAULT and photos by SARAH MCELROY

Hannah Haring Sharp has been around catfish her whole life. She knows how to process catfish, package and freeze it, how to mix catfish feed, even how to tend the ponds. These are all skills that have been ingrained on her family by decades of work at Haring Catfish in Wisner.

Part of the third generation of Haring family members to work the family enterprise, these days Hannah spends her time on the supply chain side of the operation, overseeing dispatch operations for a fleet of refrigerated trucks that deliver Haring products throughout the region. Her father, Walter Haring, is president of the company. Her siblings, her children and a slew of nieces and nephews all have worked for the company, which in spite of more than 20 years of challenges, remains the largest employer in Franklin Parish.

“There used to be 14,000 acres of catfish farms in Louisiana,” Hannah says. “But they’ve all gone out of business.”

Haring Catfish is Louisiana’s only remaining commercial fishery for catfish. The company has been able to navigate the challenges posed by international trade and a labor shortage through innovation and tenacity. Vietnamese catfish are far cheaper because of reduced labor costs and quality controls. And, like many other agri-business enterprises, making a shift is difficult, because there are too few workers and too much work to do.

Early on, her grandfather and father both recognized the potential for scaling the business by controlling more of their product’s whole lifecycle. Growing fish in ponds means you have to feed them. So, the Harings began manufacturing feed. Originally, they sold their fish to processing plants that packaged it. Why sell to middle men when you could just open your own processing plant?
With each new challenge, a new avenue of business opened up. By the early 2000s, when cheap fish from Asia began infiltrating U.S. markets, the Harings were well-positioned to survive the onslaught. They could feed 3,300 acres of ponds a day and still ship feed everywhere in the country, and they were able to process up to 500,000 pounds of fish a week. Growing fish was an expensive endeavor, but selling feed and processing fish was where the margins were at the time.

“We just had to change our way of thinking,” Hannah says. “We started buying fish from outside the state, from Texas. We buy all their fish and they buy all our feed.”

The Harings scaled back their fisheries to zero, eliminating all of the acres of catfish ponds. With purchased fish from catfish producers in Texas, Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi, they continued to process fish and sell feed to growers. At the same time, they saw a marketing opportunity for fresh, “never frozen” U.S.-produced catfish. They stopped stockpiling the company freezers and, instead, focused on fresh product delivered directly to restaurants and consumers.

Haring Catfish was bred, grown and processed in the U.S.A. Tapping into a “buy American” mood sweeping the nation, they weathered the storm. Instead of becoming the end of the line of another family-owned business, the crisis became just another chapter in Haring Catfish’s long story.

Hannah Haring Sharp’s grandfather, Pete Haring, grew up around commercial fishing. His dad was a commercial fisherman on the Mississippi coast. During a particularly challenging fishing season, Pete decided to move the family to Louisiana. They had family in Wisner, and there was land.

The first operation was to dig ponds for minnows. His brother, Frank, knew that minnow ponds could pull double duty and he introduced catfish. The brothers incorporated Haring Catfish in 1954, and they specialized in selling live, whole catfish, the business that carried them for more than 30 years into the 1980s.

By 1982, though, the market was changing. Live catfish were no longer a viable business pursuit, but people still loved catfish. The Harings built a processing plant. By 1989, they were manufacturing their own feed.

“We’re a pretty diversified company,” says Walter. “We have the feed mill. We do row crops. We process the fish, grow fish and grow minnows.”

Recently, the family has begun to reintroduce catfish to the ponds. Right now, they’re managing about 100 acres of fish, enough for a week’s worth of processing in the facility. They also entered the Internet Age, selling direct-to-consumer via an Internet storefront.

“You’ve got to keep evolving, even when selling fish,” Walter says. “Things change. It’s not stable. If you don’t change, you won’t be able to stay in business.”

Haring Catfish is still a family-run operation. Walter estimates there are nine Harings working there, currently, between his brother, his children, his grandchildren, and myriad extended family. But nine people from one family aren’t enough hands to do everything. That’s where the latest challenge lies for the operation.

It’s hard to find people who want to work, Hannah says, and unlike farmers in the Delta Parishes, Haring Catfish doesn’t qualify out-of-the-gate to hire foreign labor.

“We have employees who’ve been with us for 30 years, who’re still working with us,” Hannah says.
In a competitive economy where unemployment is below 4% nationally, the lowest ever recorded by some estimates, it’s hard to entice younger workers to fish processing. And each new worker hired is an expensive acquisition, requiring training, boots, gloves, knives and other gear.

Because Haring Catfish processes food, they require different permits to import labor. The permitting process is long, running between two and three years to complete, and they’re just about at the halfway mark. Still, Hannah and Walter both are optimistic about the future of their business.

“The strength and the will to survive, to pass this on to the next generation, is a drive to continue on my grandfather’s legacy,” Hannah says. “I want my children to know how to grow fish, how to process it. It’s something we’ve always done.”
For his part, Walter believes they are well-positioned for a competitive market and future growth. They also have a secret weapon, of sorts, that helps them remember why they’re there.

“We take care of our customers,” he says. “You have got to take care of customer service, and that’s exactly what we try to do.”
That can mean rushing a shipment for a restaurant or making multiple deliveries to the same grocer in a single day. It can also mean springing into action when your customers need you to help them diversify.

“I remember when we started processing in 1982, we only sold two items: a filet and a whole fish,” Walter says. “Now? We probably make 30 items.”

These days, after forty years in the business, Walter is beginning to turn his attention to the what’s-next for his company, his family and for himself. He tries to lead by example, and so far, he thinks it’s working. It’s the life he’s chosen and the life he hopes to give them.

“There are a lot of long hours involved, usually daylight to dark,” he says. “When you’re in business for yourself, you’re never really off.”