Ocean Beauty Seafoods is closing its Los Angeles fish smokehouse on 11 May, Tom Sunderland, the Seattle company's director of marketing, told SeafoodSource on Tuesday.
The 80-year-old facility, which produces mostly smoked Atlantic salmon products, became too expensive to maintain and upgrade. "It's getting progressively more expensive to operate," said Sunderland.
Ocean Beauty has been downsizing the facility for a while. "This was a long-term decision," he said.
However, the difficult economic climate and reduced production in Chile, where an outbreak of the infectious salmon anemia virus is forcing salmon farmers to curb output, also played a role in the company's decision to shut down the plant, explained Sunderland.
Smoked fish production will shift to Ocean Beauty's newer facilities in Seattle and Monroe, Wash., and overseas, and the company's product and brand mix will not change, he said. About 80 employees will lose their jobs.
The decision to close the Los Angeles plant came earlier this month.
Ocean Beauty operates seven processing facilities in Alaska, two value-added processing facilities in Washington, nine fresh fish distribution facilities in the western United States and sales offices in Seattle and Tokyo.
March 30, 2009
