A recent expansion at Bering Pacific Seafoods in False Pass is aiming to double the plant's workforce and significantly boost its processing and storage capacity.
"One of the expansion areas is the cold storage," said shoreside operations general manager Ken Smith. "We had a cold storage that would hold approximately 160,000 pounds; now with the new expansion we're going to have about a million pounds capacity."
Smith, originally from False Pass, is expecting the expansion to translate into an economic and population boost for the small Aleutian community. Chief Operating Officer John Sevier agrees.
BPS is owned and operated by the Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association (APICDA), which makes its money from IFQs and CDQs in the halibut and black cod fisheries.
"The money that we're making is coming from western Alaska," Sevier said. "And we're reinvesting in western Alaska."
The plant's expansion is expected to turn the facility into a year-round processor. That increase in operating time and capacity will hopefully mean an increase in community infrastructure and year-round residents, Smith said. BPS will increase its bunkhouse size to accommodate its expanded workforce.
The increase in cold storage means BPS will be able to build up a much higher volume of its final products headed for distribution, instead of stopping at 160,000 pounds and waiting for the weekly barge. This increases the amount of raw product they're able to buy weekly, from a half million pounds to 3 or 4 million.
The expansion includes that cold storage, an off-load station linked to the boat harbor, a generator house, an 80- by 80-foot new steel building, and a case-up area between the new building and the new cold storage.
