Redfish will be rolling off the production line this fall at Tracadie N.B.-based McGraw Seafood.
“We will be fully operational by mid-September. The equipment has just arrived from Denmark and has been placed into the plant to commence installation starting today,” said general manager Jake Augustine on Aug. 27.
A new, automated high-capacity packing and freezing multi-species line has been installed at the seafood processing facility, owned by Elsipogtog First Nation.
Supplying the plant with the raw product will be nine boats from the Fédération régionale acadienne des pêcheurs professionnels (FRAPP).
“Our objective is to complete all fishing trips by Nov. 30,” said FRAPP general manager Jean Lanteigne.
Last spring, the provincial and federal governments announced $3.4 million in funding through the Atlantic Fisheries Fund to help the FRAPP develop best practices to integrate the redfish fishery into the region’s fishing industry.
Lanteigne said they will be testing the performance of ground trawl vs semi-pelagic trawl in catch performance, but mainly avoiding bycatch.
“Is it possible to work with only a semi-pelagic trawl, to reduce investment by each fisherman?”
The FRAPP will also be doing an economic study on cost vs viability of a redfish fishery with all the restrictions and expenses imposed by DFO, said Lanteigne.
Augustine said McGraw expects they will be processing redfish until early December this year, and then pick things up again in the spring or late summer, depending on the availability of the raw material.
“Historically we have operated three to four months a year, and considering Elsipogtog’s significant investment into a modern seafood processing facility, it was evident that we need to diversify our product offering to operate longer periods of time. This would help not only with making the community’s investment more feasible, but also to allow us to offer longer, more meaningful work to our most loyal employees. We saw redfish as a great opportunity, considering its seasonality which is complementary to our snow crab and lobster seasons, as well as the opportunity to partner with the FRAPP and deepen ties with new fishers. McGraw’s vision is to bring honour to Elsipogtog by showcasing the collaboration between the Mi’kmaq and the Acadians, a relationship with very deep roots. This is one of the main reasons we chose this species to process, its alignment with our long-term vision,” said Augustine.
He said McGraw has been finding success identifying markets in Asia that are interested in whole redfish, which is what the plant will be mainly processing this year. “We will be doing a limited amount of fillets for retail production,” he said, adding the heads and racks will be sold as a bait product to fishermen in the Maritimes.
“China is interested in the redfish because of its colour and whole properties. We are travelling to Asia in the coming weeks with an Atlantic Canadian delegation to try to identify more markets for all of our products,” said Augustine.
This year McGraw anticipates processing three million pounds of redfish. “With a daily production capacity of 100K lbs, we have tons of capacity as the redfish can be fished for a long period of time. In future years, based on a positive experience on the markets this year, we could easily process upwards of 10M lbs,” said Augustine.
Adding redfish to the production line will provide existing workers with more employment due to the complementary seasonality — about 50 employees are required between two shifts for the production line, said Augustine. In peak snow crab season, McGraw employs 200 people.
