Sitka-based Silver Bay Seafoods will be acquiring Trident Seafoods’ processing plant in Ketchikan. The joint announcement from the two companies comes less than a week after Trident, one of the largest seafood processing companies in the country, announced that they were finalizing sales for three of the four plants it listed for sale late last year.
The deal between the two companies is expected to be completed in April, pending final negotiations. Spokespeople for the two companies declined to comment until the deal closes next month.
Trident’s Ketchikan plant was the company’s largest operation in Southeast, and was entirely dedicated to processing salmon. Silver Bay Seafoods is one of the largest processors of whitefish, salmon, herring, and squid in the state of Alaska, operating out of six plants in Sitka, Craig, Valdez, Kodiak, and Bristol Bay, with three more in the lower 48.
The company’s business model caters largely to the seine fleet, which has other gear groups in Ketchikan asking what the future may hold for them.
Cody Cowan, a Ketchikan-based troll fisherman, said he fished for Trident until the company largely stopped buying troll-caught fish. Now, according to Cowan, there is only one buyer for his catch in Ketchikan. He hopes having a new processor in the community could change that.
“Are they going to engage in buying troll fish? That’s the number one. Our biggest hope is that they are – due to the fact that there is no competition, basically, buying troll fish out of Ketchikan and it keeps the dock price low. Everybody knows that, the plants know it, the fishermen know it,” said Cowan.
In a news release, Silver Bay’s CEO Cora Campbell said that the facility will be open for the 2024 salmon season in Southeast Alaska. There is no mention of whether Silver Bay will expand its Ketchikan operations beyond salmon. Neither is there any information on how much of Trident’s existing workforce will be retained or who the buyers are for the other sold plants in Petersburg and False Pass.
Silver Bay Seafoods says it is primarily fishermen-owned, stating on their website that 600 fishermen-shareholders supply 80% of the company’s product.
Both Trident and Silver Bay said they will work with their fleets and those affected over the coming weeks to provide more details.
