Trident Seafoods has invested in three subsidiaries owned by the Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association (APICDA), according to a joint press releases issued by both entities.
Seattle, Washington-based Trident already operates 10 shore-based processing plants in Alaska and value-added processing operations in the continental United States, Europe, Japan, and China. It will now have a stake in Alaska processing firm Bering Pacific Seafoods and fuel farm False Pass Fuel Company, both located in False Pass, Alaska. It also bought a share of APICDA-owned Cannon Fish Company, a seafood value-added processing and marketing company based in Kent, Washington.
APICDA is one of six Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) corporations established in 1992. The group controls a portion of Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands quotas for groundfish, halibut and crab and exists to support the rural Alaska villages of Akutan, Atka, False Pass, Nelson Lagoon, Nikolski and St. George.
APICDA CEO Larry Cotter and Trident Seafoods CEO Joe Bundrant said in a joint press release that both companies share a commitment to investing in Alaska “for the benefit of [its] communities, fishermen, employees and customers around the world.”
“Trident has an outstanding track record of sound management and sustainable practices. As a multi‐site operator in the Aleutian‐Pribilof region, they will help APICDA maximize the volume of product, focus on providing year‐round employment and contribute greater tax revenue to the City of False Pass,” they said.
Bering Pacific Seafoods’ False Pass plant processes salmon harvested from the Southwest and Bristol Bay regions of Alaska.
“Both Trident and APICDA share the vision that the False Pass processing facility has great potential and are committed to make it more productive and efficient to better support and serve area fishermen,” Cotter and Bundrant said in their statement.
Cannon Fish Company is a secondary processing plant that turns fish initially processed in Alaska into high‐quality finished products for the retail market. Trident’s investment in Cannon Fish will allow the company to better compete on a global stage with new markets and new products, the CEOS said in their release.
“We are excited to partner with Trident in these operations,” Cotter said. “Trident has a long history of adding value to Alaska’s fishery resources, which has benefited the state’s fishermen and its fishing‐dependent communities. Trident’s investment offers APICDA the opportunity to focus greater resources to develop needed fishing industry infrastructure in our other Community Development Quota (CDQ) communities of Nelson Lagoon, Atka, and St. George as we did in False Pass.”
