Trident Seafoods — Wrangell’s largest employer during the summer — plans to open its salmon processing plant next month after its usual winter closure.

“We’re looking forward to opening our Wrangell plant on June 15, and anticipate running through the end of August,” Alexis Telfer, vice president for global communications and marketing at the Seattle-based company, said in an email last week.

“At peak, we’re projecting 220 employees on-site.”

Telfer confirmed Trident would handle pink and chum salmon at the Wrangell plant but declined further comment on the company’s plans for the summer.

Trident is generally sparse in the information it shares — as are most Alaska seafood buyers and processors in the highly competitive business.

In past years, the company packed headed-and-gutted frozen salmon, shipped out of town in freezer vans aboard Wrangell’s weekly freight barge.

The plant, which Trident bought about 15 years ago, is the company’s only seafood processing facility in Southeast Alaska. It sold its operations in Ketchikan and Petersburg last year, along with plants in the Aleutian Islands and Kodiak as it downsized its presence in the state after a couple of years of weak 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 runs that limited the volume coming into processors.

Trident is by far the largest seafood processor in town. Sea Level Seafoods, owned by Portland-based Pacific Seafood, and Tacoma-based Fathom Seafoods also buy from Wrangell boats, taking more than just salmon for their longer operating seasons.