Princess of the ball.

• Author: Beach, Geo
• Position: Efforts to improve the packaging of Alaska's pink salmon

In recent years, pink salmon has been the ugly step sister of Alaska's salmon family. Prices have dived as low as a nickel a pound. Buyers couldn't always be found. Fishermen and processors faced the prospect of losing money. At the other end of the continuum, consumers were not thrilled with a product and package that remained virtually unchanged since prospectors came to the north country a century ago. Opening a can to find skin, bones, and dark, fishy-smelling contents just didn't make it in this microwave age.

Arctic Alaska Seafoods Inc. (no connection to the Seattle based Tyson Foods unit with a similar name) had a marvelous idea; one right out of Cinderella. Take the lovely Oncorhynchus gorbuscha out of her drab dress, teach her a few new steps, and let her talents shine. Peter Zimmerman and Greg McIntosh of Arctic Alaska wrote the script. North Pacific Processors Inc. (NPPI) took the task of turning the raw talent into edible art. And Fairy Godmother - alias the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation (ASTF) - made it possible by providing key grants.

Canning the Can

Numerous salmon summits held throughout the state have emphasized that in order to prosper, Alaska salmon fishermen and processors have to insure quality, add value here in the state, and develop domestic markets. Five years ago, Arctic Alaska anticipated a drift in the industry when they began to develop a method to modify Japanese technology in order to produce a light, chunk-flake product from pink salmon.

"The idea was to produce a tuna-analog from an underutilized species, a product that would provide a direct benefit to Alaskan coastal communities," said Arctic Alaska co-founder Greg McIntosh, a resident of Halibut Cove. ASTF provided a grant of $88,500 for initial research and development of a pouched pink salmon product. And AASI and North Pacific began working together to develop the method and supporting technology.

The first thing to get trashed was the metal can. Invented in 1821, cans were the marvel of food preservation in the 19th century. But the process had its drawbacks. The early method of sealing cans with lead solder led to events such as those that befell the ill-fated Franklin Expedition of 1845. While searching for the Northwest Passage in the spring of that year, 130 sailors in two ships became lodged in ice. Their attempt at overland escape became doomed as their judgment deteriorated disastrously, due to severe lead poisoning contracted from eating provisions out of lead-soldered cans.

By the late 19th century, canning had been mostly perfected. But...