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Business World |
April 2015
108
Amendment 80,” Anderson said. “It was set
up to reduce bycatch, and it’s done that here.”
CATCHER PROCESSORS
TheAKSCis comprisedmostly of companies
involved in the Bering Sea flatfish fishery in-
dustry. Members include Fishermen’s Finest,
Inc., Iquique US, Ocean Peace, O’Hara Cor-
poration, and United States Seafood – all of
which are “catcher processor” companies.
Catcher processors – also called at-sea pro-
cessing vessels – catch, process, and freeze
groundfish within two hours of being re-
moved from the sea, ensuring high quality,
fresh product. Anderson describes a catcher-
processor as essentially having a “factory on-
board”.
“The net comes up onboard and all of the
catch goes down into the factory where
it’s sampled by an observer,” he explained.
“There are two observers on each boat, and
there is a long litany of monitoring protocols
in place that rely on both human and tech-
nology resources.”
The factory processes in these vessels involve
running the fish through a saw blade to cut
the head off, then degutting the fish, all be-
fore freezing them in frozen blocks, which
are then shipped off to different places.