The former Woodman processing plant in New Harbour, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, Canada has been sold again.
Quin-Sea Fisheries, a division of Royal Greenland, has purchased the processing plant from The Daley Brothers Co., which has operated the facility since 2012.
In the spring, the plant, which processed snow crab and northern shrimp, was idled by the Daley Brothers, and some employees were offered work in a company fish plant in Southern Harbour, Placentia Bay, and in plants in New Brunswick. An email to plant employees said it was “not feasible” to re-open plants in light of lower crab and shrimp catches.
The facility’s closure was part of a larger reduction in the number of seafood processing plants in Atlantic Canada. Within the past few years, the number of shrimp plants has dropped from 13 to seven and the number of crab processing has fallen from 35 to 24, according to the CBC.
Quin-Sea Managing Director Simon Jarding said his company will use the plant primarily to accommodate its need for additional lobster capacity.
"We plan to make significant investment in the New Harbour site, to operate a live holding facility for lobster. It is our objective to promote Newfoundland’s premium quality lobsters directly to international markets,” Jarding said. "The resource outlook on crab and shrimp will present challenges for Newfoundland’s seafood industry, and as a proactive measure, Quin-Sea has been pursuing new initiatives to create activity, create new jobs and create value in other species. We need an additional facility to accommodate the proper investment in live lobster business and New Harbour is a good solution for us.”
Supporting the investment in processing infrastructure, Royal Greenland is expanding, its Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based sales organization to focus on its North American range of products, according to the press release.
The processing purchase and enlargement of the sales organization are part of a series of aggressive moves Royal Greenland has made since entering the North American market in 2016.
Photo courtesy of Shediac Lobster Co.
