Trident Seafoods will open its processing plant in Wrangell, Alaska, U.S.A. for the upcoming salmon season.
The Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based company, which operates seafood-processing plants around Alaska, including in Akutan, Chignik, Cordova, False Pass, Ketchikan, Kodiak, North Naknek, Petersberg, Sand Point, and Saint Paul, had closed its Wrangell plant for the past three seasons, citing weak chum salmon returns.
Trident bought the plant in 2009 to service a fleet of independent purse-seine and gillnet vessels fishing all species of Alaska salmon. It can process up to 750,000 pounds of raw fish daily and specializes in frozen headed-and-gutted product. It also has cold-storage capacity.
“We are getting Wrangell back online and ready for this summer,” Trident Seafoods Alaska Whitefish Operations Vice President Jeff Wellbourn told SeafoodSource. “We are focusing on operational efficiency and frozen salmon in Wrangell for 2023, and will be verifying future opportunities for the facility during the season. [We’re] excited to be back up and running in Wrangell.”
Shannon Carroll, Trident’s director of public affairs for Alaska, cited improving chum returns in Southeast Alaska for the reopening. The company is currently undertaking maintenance and upgrades at the plant, she said.
“We’re going to operate in July and August, focusing on chums and pinks, employing a little over 100 workers for the season,” Carroll told the Wrangell Sentinel on 26 January.
The headcount is smaller than in previous years the plant was open, when it operated with as many as 250 workers. Trident first shuttered the plant in 2020, when the annual chum haul totaled around five million fish, according to The Cordova Times, and began running tenders to take fish from Wrangell to its Petersburg and Ketchikan processing plants.
A forecast for the coming salmon season in Southeast Alaska from NOAA Fisheries and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game predicts a weak run of around 19 million pink salmon, just over half of the 10-year average of 33 million pinks. ADFG has not yet issued a formal prediction for 2023 chum salmon returns.
Photo courtesy of Trident Seafoods
