Togiak Seafood’s is Up and Running

The 2009 Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run came in larger than expected, produced harvests exceeding almost all expectations, and is not quite over. The total run to the Bay has officially exceeded 40-million and the total commercial catch has topped 30.7-million sockeye. Another17.8-thousand sockeye were counted as escapement on Thursday, which puts total escapement for the season up to 9.3-million. However, Fish and Game is only counting escapement on the Togiak and Igushik Rivers because the counting towers on all of the other river systems have been pulled. According to the latest numbers every river system in Bristol Bay has either met or exceeded their pre-season escapement goals including the Togiak River, which on Thursday topped the lower it of its escapement goal. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued an emergency order Thursday afternoon extending fishing time in the Togiak River section of the Togiak District until 9-am Sunday morning, which diverts from the normal schedule. The entire Togiak District will then reopen at 9-am on Monday. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is restricted in the amount of extra fishing time they can allow. Assistant Area Management Biologist Matt Jones confirms that the department can only extend fishing time by 48-hours thus the opening in the Togiak River section through 9-am Sunday morning. Escapement to the Togiak River has picked up in recent days, which was evidenced by the 24-thousand fish spotted on Wednesday at the counting towers set up on the Togiak River. Another 29-thousand sockeye were counted as escapement on Thursday. Total escapement for the season is well over 130-tousand and the escapement goal is between 120 to 270-thousand sockeye. On Thursday fishermen in the Togiak District hauled in 39-thousand sockeye, which puts the total harvest for the season well over 370-thousand fish. ADF&G’s Matt Jones confirms that effective Friday morning fishermen who have fished in other Districts in Bristol Bay could transfer without delay into the Togiak District. Most of the concentrated fishing effort in the Togiak District occurs in Togiak Bay and Jones sounded optimistic about the size of the run and the ability of fishermen to continue harvesting sockeye. He said, “I’d say all signs point to an average to above average run right now. I expect good fishing at least through next week and maybe into August we could see more good fishing by Togiak standards”. Fish and Game is advising fishermen to listen for an announcement next week that may make adjustments to the scheduled fishing periods. Announcements can be heard on KDLG am 670 at 6-minutes past the hours of 9-am, 12-noon, 3-pm, 6-pm and 9-pm. Informational updates and announcements are also available by calling the info line at 246-4636. At noon Thursday ADF&G issued another emergency order that extends commercial fishing in the Naknek-Kvichak, Egegik and Ugashik Districts with both set and drift gear through 9-am Monday morning.

A major high-end salmon processor has partnered with a small Bristol Bay community to create the newest company to join the wide array of fish processors that do business in Bristol Bay. Copper River Seafood’s has put up $2-million dollars and the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation has matched that $2-million dollars in and effort to create a new company called Togiak Seafood’s. Actually BBEDC’s share of the money was given to the Traditional Council of Togiak, which is one of its member’s. That makes the new company a 50-50 partnership between the Council and Cooper River Seafood’s. The ultimate goal is to refurbish an existing building in the city of Togiak for use as a processing plant but the facility is not ready this season. But that’s not stopping the new company from buying Togiak fish. Instead of processing the fish in Togiak the company is icing the fish down and quickly flying them to the Copper River Seafood’s processing facility near downtown Anchorage. Joe Egemo is the Chief Operations Officer for Copper River Seafood’s and he claims fishing has started to pick up in the last 10-days in Togiak Bay. Egemo said, “We are starting to get the volumes we need and we have been keeping our Hercules aircraft full, which haul out 42-thousand pounds per hop out of Togiak back to Anchorage”. The plan is for Togiak Seafood’s to continue buying sockeye, coho, kings, and chums through about mid-September and the company is paying a dollar a pound for kings and sockeye delivered to their dock and 95-cents for fish that that are tendered. The price for chums is 20-cents. However, the company is only buying chilled and bled fish. The fish being delivered to Togiak Seafood’s is not destined for a can nor is it headed and gutted. Rather it will be processed into fillets and make its way to the fresh salmon markets in the lower 48-states. In 2010 the company hopes to have their processing facility in the city of Togiak up and running with both fillet and H&G lines that will be manned by local Togiak area residents. Jonathan Forsling is the Traditional Council of Togiak’s representative on the management team for the new company. He believes a processing plant in the city of Togiak has the potential to greatly improve the local economy. He said, “Our main goal is to stimulate the economy by creating jobs here in Togiak as well as bringing the price up for fishermen and having jobs available throughout our more of the season”. Forsling says slowly but surely many of the local Togiak area fishermen have begun to accept the new company and adapt to the new chilling and bleeding requirements. He said, “This is actually the first year that the icing and bleeding program has really begun to take off and with everything it just takes time for the fishermen to get used to the extra time it takes to bleed a fish and the extra time it takes to put them on ice”. Copper River Seafood’s monetary investment into Togiak Seafood’s is around $2-million dollars but Egemo noted that the investment is much larger when you take into consideration the operational knowledge that has been brought into the community. As an example he cited the city owned 10-ton ice making plant which sat unused and broken for years until some engineers with Copper River Seafood’s got it up and running. The Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association put up over $7-thousand dollars to get the ice-machine back up and running and the organization’s Executive Director took a tour around Togiak Seafood’s operations on Thursday. Bob Waldrop said, “I couldn’t be happier than I am right now to see what Cooper River Seafood’s and the Traditional Council of Togiak has done over here. It’s pretty phenomenal and we are very proud to have played a small part in attracting extra processing capacity to the Togiak area”. All of the players in Togiak Seafood’s agree that the venture would not have gotten off the ground without the financial support of the BBEDC. Robin Samuelsson Junior is the BBEDC President and C-E-O and he got his first chance on Thursday morning to see the Togiak Seafood’s operation. He believes the investment helps BBEDC further fulfill its mission to promote economic growth and opportunities for residents of its member communities. He said, “We’ll it’s important for the competition. Togiak Fisheries has been on limits with fishermen before. The fishermen are getting a real good price. The product is iced and it’s going out of Togiak as a number one product and that’s what it’s all about”. Togiak Seafood’s is not the only processor buying fish out of the Togiak District. On the other side of Togiak Bay is a processing facility known as Togiak Fisheries, which has been operating for years. That facility is owned and operated by North Pacific Seafood’s, which is based in Seattle. It’s anticipated that some of the other processors in the Bay will be participating in the small Togiak fishery by sending tenders over to Togiak Bay now that the transfer restriction has been lifted. While Togiak Seafood’s might be the newest processor in the Togiak area there was a surprise entrant on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Coastal Villages Seafood’s, which is part of the C-D-Q group Coastal Villages Region Fund, sent a tender into Togiak Bay to buy fish to process at their new multi-million dollar processing plant in Platinum. Stuart Currie is the General Manager for Coastal Villages Seafood’s and he confirms that the new plant has been processing fish since around June 22nd. He noted that the company decided to buy fish from Togiak due to the short 15 hour running time for their tender back to the plant in Platinum. He said, “We are kind of at a slow point and are between fisheries in the Kuskokwim region. So our plant is not being used to full capacity right now so we thought we would come to Togiak and see what it looks like over here. This is a little bit of an adventure for us”. The new processing plant in Platinum was not cheap. It was built from the ground up at a cost somewhere around $35-million dollars. Stuart Currie claimed the plant has been buying fish from a fleet of around 200 salmon fishermen who might not otherwise have a commercial market in the Goodnews and Kuskokwim areas. The new processing plant employs about 250 people and Currie stated that perhaps as many as 90-percent of those are local area residents. Currie was unsure if the companies tender would return to Togiak once it was full and made the 15 hour run back to Platinum.