Even before COVID-19 changed consumer habits, Canso Seafoods Ltd. was feeding a market hungry for ready-to-eat lobster.
As restaurant diners were forced to try home cooking, they went looking for more pre-cooked packages of seafood in supermarket freezers.
And that created an opportunity for seafood companies around Atlantic Canada, including Canso Seafoods.
The company already produces whole lobster, cooked and ready to eat, keeping 50-60 people on the payroll for about three or four months each year.
Now Canso is eyeing the lobster tails and meat market, as it appears more consumers are looking for those products on supermarket shelves.
To ramp up for that retail market, Louisbourg Seafoods, the parent company of Canso, is investing $2.3 million to modernize the plant.
Allan MacLean, Senior Operations Manager for Louisbourg Seafoods, told SaltWire plans for the expansion and modernization began before COVID.
“In 2019 we were looking at some of the changes that were occurring in the market for lobster tails and sections (and) … how we were looking at ways we could possibly extend the employment season in Canso.”
Plans for the expansion began.
MacLean said when Jim Kennedy acquired the plant in Canso in 2008 from National Sea Products, they re-tooled older equipment from other plants to process lobster and crab.
The modernization project will see some of that older equipment replaced with brand new machinery, a steam-cooker and a high-efficiency freezer, designed and built specifically for the operation.
The new equipment will enable the company to do two things, said MacLean.
“It will automate some of the more labour-intensive processes that we have now. And in doing that, we will increase our overall daily production, in some cases almost double our daily production,” he said.
MacLean added the upgrades will also ensure steady work, and possibly a longer season of work, for the Canso employees.
“Currently we operate for about three months of the year. But we could possibly go to six or seven months with the addition of lobster meat and tails.”
Work underway
Some of the money to carry out the expansion comes from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), in the form of a repayable loan of $900,000.
Already, some of the work is underway.
Renovations have started on the physical structure of the plant, and the new equipment has been ordered.
The project also means a boost for other businesses, with carpenters, plumbers and electricians involved at the site.
The specialized processing equipment is also being manufactured on the East Coast.
“The equipment is being produced in Atlantic Canada and that’s one thing the company was determined to do, to source that from local companies,” said MacLean.
With the processing season finished up for 2020, MacLean added, work on the upgrades can now begin in earnest.
The deadline they have in mind for completion is April 1, 2021, just in time for the start of the next lobster fishing season.
Twitter: @BarbDeanSimmons
