Ocean Beauty’s fish processing plant at Excursion Inlet. (Henry Leasia /KHNS)

Ocean Beauty Seafoods has begun another summer of processing fish at the Excursion Inlet plant. The season is off to a slow start, but the chum salmon run is expected to pick up. 

In recent years Ocean Beauty has been shifting its focus from canning to freezing fish in Southeast Alaska. Last summer, the Excursion Inlet plant, located in a remote corner of the Haines Borough, significantly increased its freezing capacity. 

At the time the market for frozen pink salmon was more lucrative. Alaska Operations Manager Mike Forbush says that’s not the case anymore. 

“The market for frozen pinks is bad,” Forbush says. “We’re probably going to put more of the pink salmon into cans rather than freeze. Last year we froze up all the pink salmon. This year we’re going to put quite a bit more into cans.”

Forbush says the pink salmon run for Southeast Alaska is looking weak this year, while the chum forecasts are strong. He expects restrictions in place to protect king salmon will reduce the amount of sockeye coming into the plant. 

“We bought fish on the first opener. That was the 16th of June. We’ve always started as soon as it opens. It’s been a very slow start so far. You know, the weather, it’s been warm. I think once we get some cooler weather the fish will start moving around and maybe a little bit of wind will help that too,” Forbush says.

Local salmon runs aren’t the only factor affecting Ocean Beauty’s sales.  

Alaska’s seafood industry has been facing the fallout of an ongoing trade war with China. Tariffs of up to 25 percent on U.S. seafood products going to China went into effect last July and the Trump administration has threatened more. China is Alaska’s biggest seafood buyer, purchasing over half of the state’s seafood exports in 2017.

Forbush says the tariffs will affect some of Ocean Beauty’s sales, but the company’s market is diverse. 

“Well it’ll have some effect on us for product that we do send over there. However, we’ve got a lot of markets all around the world. We’ve got a real strong European market as well as domestic markets. We have our own reprocessing plants in Washington and our own distribution networks around the U.S.”

Meanwhile, seafood industry media outlets Intrafish and Undercurrents News report that Ocean Beauty is negotiating a sale of the company. When asked if that is true, Forbush declined to comment.