Fish processor tour - Kodiak

ISA – International Seafoods of Alaska – was kind enough to let a bunch of fish geeks inside for a tour.  It’s definitely not set up for tours, so I doubt they give them regularly.  We were a group of about 18, and totally in the way down on the processing floor.  There were forklifts moving huge orange plastic bins of fish around and you had to keep your eyes open to stay out of their way.  I was very impressed with the whole process – very clean, little waste, super efficient, and fast.  The processor handles fish only  (as opposed to shellfish) and were processing pacific cod, arrowtooth flounder and several other species of flatfish while we were there.  They can process 300,000 to 700,000 pounds of fish PER DAY, depending on the species.  The guide said there were two crews of 80-90 people working around the clock.  It was really, really cool, and my favorite tour.  Seeing how the fish are processed made me happy – I would still eat seafood after seeing how it’s all handled and processed.  I wonder if I would say the same after a slaughterhouse tour?  Probably not.  Actually, I think it would be good to see more about how the foods I eat are processed.  I may make that a new goal.  

Also, I should note that the processing process isn’t at all like I imagined it would be.  For some reason I thought it would be a more…linear…process with fish going in one side then moving down a loooong straight line from step to step.  It wasn’t.  It wasn’t exactly a maze, but there were different centers of activity (which makes sense and mostly shows my naivety, really).  And I never, ever would have guessed that there would be a machine that could take a whole fish and pull out two nearly perfect looking fillets with seemingly nill waste.  Amazing.

Some photos and brief explanations:

Sorting fish by species and size.  They come past on a conveyor belt and the staff pick out their assigned species or species/size combination, then drop them into bins.  Bins are moved to the next station (species specific processing techniques, of course, flatfish are handled different from say, cod).

Sorted bins of (I think) arrowtooth flounder and pacific cod

A couple of workers holding up fish for me to photograph.  The staff seemed very welcoming and willing to share their work.

Fish moving up a belt for processing

After being filleted by a machine, the cod (and other species perhaps) were trimmed by hand

 

Then fish fillets were packed and frozen, or frozen individually and packed.  Our flight off the island had a couple of pallets of fresh (not frozen) fillets loaded aboard, headed for the lower 48.  It looked like most of the fish was frozen but some was shipped fresh.