Boston Seafood Expo: showcasing the best of Alaska.

AuthorLavrakas, Dimitra
PositionFISHERIES

To get an idea of how huge the international seafood industry is, come to Boston in March. Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America is held at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, which is the largest exhibition center in the Northeast United States. With 516,000 square feet of exhibition space, the number of booths it packs in is dizzying. It is the largest seafood trade event in North America and is attended by more than nineteen thousand people from more than one hundred countries.

Seafood companies dominate the floor, but there are also packaging, container, and other supplies for the industry represented. There are even technology companies offering applications to trace fish from boat to plate.

Come down the escalators and right away the first big banners seen are from Alaska: Icicle, Trident, Peter Pan. While they may be owned by companies outside of Alaska, their contributions to the state's economy cannot be denied.

And Alaska has a healthy representation by local fisherman organizations, mom and pop businesses, regional organizations, and village corporations, as well as companies like Lynden Transport that ship all over the world.

Bering Sea Commodities

The Japanese company, Nippon Suisan Kaisha (Nissui), has a major presence in Alaska, most notably UniSea's processing plant and support facilities for workers in Dutch Harbor.

The multinational company was founded over one hundred years ago by Ichiro Tamura, who pioneered steel-frame trawlers in Japan. Today, several one hundred-plus-foot factory trawlers ply the Bering Sea.

In 2011, the Fukushima earthquake in Japan devastated a large swath of industrial waterfront, and, at the time, there was concern about how it would affect Unisea's business in Alaska.

"Nissui is doing fine," says West Coast Regional Sales Manager Joe Lis, with Nissui subsidiary F.W. Bryce, Inc., the North American sales and marketing company for Nissui's commodity seafood.

Gifts of Smoked Salmon Created a Thriving Business

Beaming with the pride of creating an award-winning product, Art and Jo Ann Tilgner and their son, Kris, offer up a piece of their Ruby Red Olde World Scottish Style Cold Smoked Sockeye Salmon. The fish is moist with a hint of what they call, "spirits of the Caribbean." Brined then lightly cold smoked with Alaskan alder, the fillets are aged during refrigeration and flash frozen at their facility in Ninilchik.

"I'm the old gobbler," says Art, an aviation examiner...

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