SHORESIDE SHAKEUP:Alaska's seafood processing sector evolves as companies combine, change hands

摘要

Alaska's commercial fishing industry is hugely reliant on seafood processors employing thousands of people to do the grueling work of cleaning and packing the state's abundant fish and shellfish.Processing is risky business financially, as companies continually faces challenges such as daunting distances, harvest fluctuations, regulatory hurdles, competitive pressures, and even geopolitics.To stay afloat, processors must continually adapt and invest. Lately, it seems, the processing sector has seen even more change than usual.One of the biggest changes came in May 2020, when two of Alaska's oldest and largest processors, Ocean Beauty and Icicle, announced they would merge their wild salmon and Gulf of Alaska groundfish operations. The deal spawned a new company, OBI SeafoodsLLC."The Alaska salmon business is experiencing significant market and resource fluctuations," noted Ocean Beauty's president, Mark Palmer, who was tabbed as CEO of the newly merged company.Included in the merger were all five of Icicle's shoreside plants and all five of Ocean Beauty's shoreside plants in Alaska.