“For the first time in many years, we are open for black cod and halibut this spring,” a Trident Seafoods official said of the company’s plant in Wrangell.

“We opened on April 15,” shipping both fresh and frozen headed-and-gutted black cod and halibut, said Alexis Telfer, vice president for global communications and marketing for Seattle-based Trident.

The fresh fish will go out airfreight, with the frozen products heading to market in freezer vans aboard the weekly freight barge.

“This year, black cod and halibut presented an opportunity to expand our operations in Wrangell and our presence in Southeast Alaska,” Telfer said in an email on May 1. “We’re pleased to support local fishing families and looking forward to a great season together.”

The initial springtime crew at the Wrangell plant is small but will grow as the commercial pink and chum seasons get busy. “We’ll start with salmon in mid-June. At peak, we estimate 150 people for the summer season,” Telfer said.

Pinks and chums get the same headed-and-gutted treatment, going out as fresh and frozen products.

Trident bought the Wrangell plant about 16 years ago; it’s the company’s only seafood processing facility in Southeast after it sold its operations in Ketchikan and Petersburg in 2024. It also sold its plants in the Aleutian Islands and Kodiak as it downsized its presence in the state after a couple of years of particularly low seafood prices and tough market conditions.

The company reopened the Wrangell plant in 2023 after a three-year closure during the worst of the pandemic shutdowns and weak salmon returns, especially chum.

Last year, the company reduced its Wrangell plant to one shift of about 100 workers earlier than expected in the summer, scaling back to about half its full crew at two shifts as lower-than-expected pink runs cut into its supply.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s preseason forecast for pink salmon this summer in Southeast is about 10% below last year’s actual harvest.

The department’s preseason forecast for commercial chum harvest in Southeast is about 25% below last year’s catch.