West Coast seafood producer make major move into shellfish
Published: 11/23/2011 by Quentin Dodd
» News
Washington-based seafood producer Pacific Seafood Group (PSG) recently announced its first big plunge into the shellfish industry, by purchasing one of the major oyster-producing companies in the United States.
PSG announced it recently bought Coast Seafoods Co., of South Bend, Washington, which has oyster farms on 14,000 acres of tidelands in Washington’s Willipa Bay and Grays Harbor, and in Humboldt Bay, California. Coast also owns and operates a substantial hatchery on Hood Canal near the town of Quilcene in Washington, as well as a half share in the Penn Cove Shellfish Co. of Coupeville, Washington.
Pacific Seafood Group is considered one of the giants of the US seafood industry, with a fleet of fishing boats, processing plants for various species that stretch all the way from northern California to the Gulf of Alaska, and a large wholesale trade that caters to both restaurants and retailers.
Termed a “dominant buyer and processor” of Dungeness crab, Pacific shrimp, groundfish and whiting, PSG has had only a comparatively small presence in shellfish until now, with only one farm holding – an oyster farm in North Bend – and an oyster processing plant in Bay City.