A Pacific Northwest seafood business owner, whose family has been active in commercial fishing in Alaska since 1981, plans to buy and expand the operations of Fathom Seafoods in Wrangell.
Peninsula Seafoods has applied to the borough for transfer of the lease on a small dockside parcel at The Marine Service Center. The port commission has recommended approval of the transfer, sending the issue to the borough assembly.
As soon as the assembly signs off on the transfer, which could come at its Jan. 23 meeting, Jeff Grannum, general manager of Peninsula Seafoods, said he will take over the business.
Grannum, who lives in Portland, bought Peninsula Seafoods about two years ago. The marketing company has its administrative offices in Port Angeles, Washington.
He plans to continue buying crab, which has been Fathom Seafood’s mainstay, and expand the Wrangell operation into halibut, shrimp and salmon. The plant has a small blast freezer, but the main focus will be on buying, icing, packing and shipping fresh seafood to buyers.
Grannum said he is working with a custom processor in the Seattle area that could freeze Peninsula Seafoods’ product if needed to meet market demand.
The Wrangell plant also has tanks to hold live crab.
“We came to Wrangell originally looking for crab,” said Solomon Fowler, of Fathom Seafood, which bought the waterfront operation in 2021 from Steve Thomassen, who worked under the name Crab Alaska.
Fathom, with facilities in Oregon and Washinton state, isn’t leaving Wrangell entirely. Fowler said he plans to buy Wrangell crab from Peninsula Seafoods.
“I’m going to sell as much as I can,” Grannum said in an interview Jan. 9. “Dungies are a core for us,” he said of the popular Dungeness crab. He also plans to buy and market “as much halibut as we possibly can.”
He expects to start moving product in mid-February, when the golden king crab season opens, moving into other species as their seasons open for commercial harvest. “Our focus is going to be buying ‘species by calendar.’”
The state has significantly increased this year’s harvest guideline for golden king crab in Frederick Sound, north of Petersburg.
After the crab season, Peninsula will turn to longliners and trollers for halibut and then salmon. “We want to build our base of longliners, particularly for halibut,” Grannum said.
The operation plans to serve the fleet with bait and ice, according to its lease transfer request to the borough.
Grannum explained he wants to work with fishermen, figuring out what they have coming into the dock and selling the catch ahead for delivery to customers. “I want to focus on direct supply from fishermen.”
Branding is part of it, too, he said. “I’m definitely planning to send out branded seafood cartons,” printed with the company name and “Wrangell Seafood.”
“Alaska Air Cargo is our freight route for everything,” he said of moving product to market, though perhaps, in time, he may expand into putting iced, fresh seafood on the southbound state ferry on Monday for delivery in Bellingham, Washington, two days later.
“To be determined,” is how he describes the truck and ferry option.
Peninsula Seafoods will join Seattle-based Trident Seafoods and Sea Level Seafood, owned by Oregon-based Pacific Seafood, as Wrangell’s largest buyers and sellers.
Trident reopened its Wrangell plant last summer after a three-year closure. The company said in December it intends to operate the facility this year, though it is looking to sell its plants in Petersburg and Ketchikan as it adapts to a changing market.
Trident froze headed-and-gutted pinks and chums in Wrangell last year.
Grannum said he would like to expand Peninsula Seafoods into troll salmon but is unsure of a timeline.
He comes from a fishing family, which has run a setnet site on the Kenai Peninsula since 1981. He later worked at Pacific Seafood in Wrangell, working alongside Verne and Dustin Phillips.
“Dustin is a key partner in all this,” Grannum said of his co-worker, who will be Peninsula Seafoods’ fleet manager in Wrangell.
The company is planning to employ a minimum of three people at the facility, doubling or tripling that number as needed when seafood is coming in for packing and shipping.
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