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Ocean Beauty canning facilities. (Photo: Ocean Beauty)
Alaska processor will not produce canned salmon this year
(UNITED STATES, 2/8/2017)
Alaska fish processor, Ocean Beauty Seafoods, based in Alaska, will not produce canned salmon at its plant in Petersburg this year. The company argues that the current market conditions are more favorable for the sale of frozen salmon over canned.
Tom Sunderland, vice president of marketing, said that Petersburg plant is essentially a cannery and does not have a very large or efficient freezing operation.
“Our plant at Excursion Inlet on the other hand does have substantial freezing capacity and we can move that production over there and take care of that,” he noted. “And by doing so, the hope is we can return the highest value to the fleet by putting the product into its most lucrative product form,” he added.
On the other hand, canned salmon inventory remains on the shelves from prior years driving down the demand for that product.
The executive stressed that the process his company will undergo, will be seen in many other in Alaska.
“You’re going to see a lot of processors de-emphasizing canning and emphasizing freezing to the extent possible, just a reflection of the current world market conditions,” Sunderland emphasized.
As many as 200 cannery workers will not be in Petersburg this year and most of those jobs will be in Excursion Inlet instead, KFSK reported.
However, Ocean Beauty’s office will still be open in Petersburg and the company will still be providing support for its fishing fleet and buying fish in the area.
Ocean Beauty’s decision will leave Petersburg with only one salmon cannery in operation this summer, Icicle Seafoods, the town’s largest processor.
Patrick Wilson, the company’s Petersburg Fisheries plant manager indicated, “hopefully we will get enough to can and keep the cold storage busy.”
Wilson acknowledged that the industry is shifting the focus to more frozen products as the low yield of pink salmon last summer hit the industry across the state of Alaska. And he said he hoped more fish would return this year as State and federal scientists forecast a harvest of about 43-46 million pink salmon in southeastern Alaska in 2017.
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Information of the company:
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1100 West Ewing
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Seattle
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Washington (98107)
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United States
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+1 206 285 6800
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+1 206 285 9190
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[email protected]
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