After careful consideration, OBI Seafoods announced today the company's decision not to operate its Larsen Bay plant, located on Kodiak Island, for the 2024 salmon season.
Salmon caught on Kodiak Island by the OBI Seafoods fleet will be processed at its facility in Kodiak town. Capacity should not be an issue, with OBI's Seward and Cordova facilities able to support Kodiak during the peak of the season in August.
The decision to not operate the Larsen Bay plant is due to the poor pink salmon forecast issued by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and tough market conditions for salmon products in general, according to OBI Seafoods CEO John Hanrahan.
"The Kodiak town plant operates year-round and has the ability to process salmon in a greater diversity of product forms making it better suited to respond to salmon markets in 2024 as we navigate this challenging time for the industry," Hanrahan said.
The Larsen Bay facility, ideally situated close to the island's westside fishing grounds, will remain open with a small team fully dedicated to providing services to its fleet. This team will include OBI's fleet manager, office manager, chief engineer, port engineer, welder, general maintenance, fishermen's services, laundry and beach gang.
OBI has every intention to operate its Larsen Bay facility again in the 2025 salmon season.
About OBI Seafoods:
OBI Seafoods was formed in 2020 through a merger with Ocean Beauty Seafoods and Icicle Seafoods, two of the oldest and most successful seafood companies in Alaska. The company operates 10 processing plants throughout the state and is a leading producer of fresh, frozen and canned Alaska seafood.
3 comments:
This has little to do with pink salmon and more to do with a museum-like facility that was at its peak productivity and efficiency when Carter was president. Stable management cannot overcome unstable and aged infrastructure. Your time has come and gone, LB. It was a good 100-year run. Mid-quality sockeye can survive the run to Kodiak. Can OBI survive the year?
They follow this model every year in June and usually in September. They did it all of 2020 too.
The plant could probably process the whole 2024 Kodiak pink salmon forecast between cans and H&G frozen.
If forecast is accurate all of processing crews are going to be short work. OBI would need to fly a crew of 200-plus for LB to run.
I'm not sure that it's not about pinks. The plant is pretty useful. It sits right next to most of Kodiak sockeye and sometimes it's within a few miles of 10 million pinks.
Maybe not about pinks but about influential multi-permit setnet families in proximity to LB: Fields, Danelski, Francisco, Beardsley, Haughey, etc. But, regardless of actual reason, smart move.
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