Company hopes to process up to five million pounds of fresh, frozen H&G at plant previously owned by Extreme Seafoods.
In April, Copper River Seafoods confirmed it was expanding its operations in the Bristol Bay fishery with the purchase of a processing plant in Naknek. That plant, known by some as old Baywatch, was owned and operated for just one year by Extreme Seafoods. Copper River is planning to process up to five million pounds of sockeye at the Naknek plant, and the company says they're looking for fishermen to buy from. KDLG’s Dave Bendinger has more:
Audio transcript below ...
Until recently, Copper River Seafoods only operation in Bristol Bay was a plant in Togiak, which had specialized in shipping salmon fresh to Anchorage. Last year the company added freezing capacity in Togiak.
This year, the company is stepping up its presence in Bristol Bay further with the purchase of the Naknek plant previously run by Extreme Seafoods.
"Our plan this year is for the Naknek operations to produce a mix of fresh and frozen H&G sockeye salmon, and that will increase our total production of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon by roughly four to five million pounds," said Chief Marketing Officer Cassandra Squibb.
That four to five million additional pounds should take a bite out of the 2.1 million sockeye that Fish and Game’s preseason survey of processors indicated would be available for harvest but likely beyond the capacity of the Bay’s buyers.
Squibb also says those four million-plus pounds will be a significant production increase over what Extreme Seafoods had anticipated the year before.
According to Squibb, Copper River plans on sending the fresh and frozen H&G salmon back to company headquarters in Anchorage.
"We have a processing facility here in Anchorage where we add value, and the primary market for this product will be domestic U.S. retail," she said.
Squibb says Copper River is looking to invest several million dollars into the Naknek plant other the next few years.
"Really the goal for the company is to manufacture as much seafood in Alaska as we can. In other words, it's to send less seafood out of the state with jobs still left in it. So, over time we'd like to see more value-adding in that Naknek plant."
Copper River’s expansion this season should help capture more of the estimated allowed harvest, and it may also help some fishermen find a market:
"We're always looking to grow our fleet with quality-oriented fishermen, so yes there's definitely an opportunity for more fishermen to come on board with Copper River Seafoods."
Copper River intends to operate eight tenders, keeping five in Naknek-Kvichak, and three in Togiak, and will be buying set net fish as well.
Interested fishermen can contact Bristol Bay manager Vojtech Novak to get more details.