A32-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 29, 2002
Aquatic Agriculture:
Holstein Convention Attendees
Tour Lund’s Fisheries
MICHELLE KUNJAPPU
Lancaster Farming Staff
CAPE MAY, N.J. A tour of
Lund’s Fisheries Incorporated
was on the agenda during the
National Holstein Convention.
The Cape May fishery’s fleet of
owner-operator fishing boats har
vest a wide variety of fresh and
frozen species every day, which
include squid, mackerel, herring,
monkfish, scup, and butterfish.
Twenty 80-160-foot boats and
several 40-foot boats harvest the
seafood, up to 300 tons in a day
during the busy season. The busi
ness includes more than 120 em
ployees during the busy season
(October through April) and
about 80 employees during the
slow season.
Founded in 1954 by Warren
Lund, the operation focused
mainly on local, fresh seafood
markets.
In the late 70’s and early 80’s
Michael Byrne, vice president of
the business, and Jeff Reichle
noted the changing industry and
saw the opportunity to harvest
what the foreign fisheries had
formerly taken species such as
squid and mackerel, considered
“junk fish” because they were not
in demand in American markets.
Flounder, cod, scallops, said
Byrne, could be considered
“money fish.”
The men spent time on Japa
nese ships, learning the processes
involved in harvesting the sea
food. They learned how to man
age the fish and began to educate
fishermenon proper handling
techniques.
“Every year is a little differ
ent” in the export markets, said
Byme. Fish from Lund’s Fisher
ies end up in the Mediterranean
area such as Spain, Italy, and
Greece or African countries such
as Nigeria, Ghana, and Camer
oon. Egypt also imports fish,
along with China, Taiwan,
Japan, Korea, Iceland, Canada,-
Venezuela, Brazil, Australia, and
New Zealand.
Exhibiting in seafood shows
such as events like the Boston
Seafood Show in March or a sea
food exhibition in China have
Employees pack
cleaned squid. A
by-product of the
cleaning, “squid
gurry” is sold to
be made into
aquaculture feed.
YODER’S
Windmill (p*
Service *
Specializing in new & used
windmill sales & service
CALL FOR PRICING
717/532-4591
Send written inquiries to
2006 Bedford Road
Shippensburg, PA 17257
helped establish business connec
tions with foreign countries.
Overseas markets are not the
only facet of their business, how
ever. Ten tractor-trailers travel in
different directions each night,
taking much smaller orders
perhaps 100 pounds per invoice
to food distribution centers in
large cities along the East Coast.
Busy, Slow Seasons
The fisheries operate on a busy
and slow-season schedule. Octo
ber through April, when the
water temperatures in the Atlan
tic are changing, “fish school up
and migrate,” said Byrne. That
alone helps the fishermen gather
larger numbers of fish in more
concentrated areas.
The overall range is from Cape
Cod, Mass, to Cape Hatteras,
N.C., but “not in one trip,”
according to Byme. Although the
smaller boats do complete fishing
trips in one day, the larger boats
are out for approximately two to
three days.
Time is important, however,
because “if the boat is taking
fresh fish, once they put their
Flying fish: traveling on a cushion of refrigerated sea
water, the fish are transported from the ship to the pro
cessing facility 900 feet away at Lund’s dock. A smaller
pipe takes the seawater back to the ship’s hold. “It’s a
closed loop, so we don’t have to keep refrigerating in the
water,” said Byrne.
Mahoning Outdoor Furnaces
Cut Heating Cost With An Outdoor Furnace
✓4 H £ tfCatUn ~Cd It
y~
Standard Models Burn Wood, Coal
Multi-Fuel Models Burn Wood, Coal,
Oil, Propane, Gas or Waste Oil
“Adapts To All Existing Systems”
www mahoningoutdoorfurnace com
800-692-5200
Detlershlps Available In Some Arete
first bag of fish on board, the
clock is ticking,” he said.
Traveling to Cape Cod in the
early spring, the fishing boats
wait for the mackerel, for exam
ple, to come south on their mi
gration route. The fish then make
a U-tum and head back up to
Cape Cod.
“A boat can be on the macker
el for two or three days and expe
rience (inclement) weather and
have to come back. When the
boats go back out, the crew might
not have any clue where to go.
“It’s amazing how far the fish
can travel they can swim 25 to
30 miles in a day in any direction.
Crews can spend three to four
days just searching.”
Captains, however, may not be
at a total loss in looking for the
fish, with the help of written logs
which record where the fish have
been under certain conditions in
past years. Also knowing the
temperature or sea bottom condi
tions that the fish favor will help
to pinpoint the fish.
“Fish finders,” computer sys
tems located in the ship, use
sonar techniques to help locate
the next catch.
Once the fish are found, the
stem trawlers let down two large
boards on either side of the ship.
Once they are in the water, the
large boards, connected to the
boat with a cable, spread and pull
the net apart.
A chain is hooked to the bot
tom of the net for drag and floats
hold the top of the net up. Since
the net is larger at the front
with enough room for a
747 to fit inside this ere-
ates a funnel shape which
is pulled behind the boat.
The grid of the mesh is
larger at the beginning and
smaller toward the end of
Vice president of Lund’s Fisheries, Michael Byrne
stands on the fisher’s dock with part of the fishery’s fleet
in the background.
the- funnel, allowing for the
smaller fish to swim out.
The last section of the net,
then, holds the fish. Instead of
pulling them aboard, most of the
fish are loaded from sea-level
into the chambers below deck.
While the size of the net may
sound impressive, the size of the
schools can be even more so.
“Captains have reported steam
ing over 35 miles of herring,”
said Byrne.
Below the factory deck, the
boats may hold four tanks of
chilled seawater. In addition, the
ship may have fish-freezing capa
bilities. The crew sorts the fish by
eye before the fish are frozen in
blocks.
Sorting is usually straightfor
ward, as “the species separate
themselves out there, they stay
with their own kind,” said Byrne.
Lund’s also dredges for clams
and catches tuna via purse sein
ing, as opposed to dragging. Dur
ing purse seining, the net is run
around the school of fish. Divers
flip the dolphins over the encir
cling net before the fish are taken
aboard.
Processing
Lund’s houses their processing
facilities at the dock. Once the
ships dock, the fish are pumped
in through large pipes to the pro
cessing facility 900 feet away by
“fish pumps” that range from 40
to 80 horsepower.
While the frozen fish are al
ready graded, the fresh fish,
which constitute
a much larger
segment of
Lund’s business,
must be ma
chine-graded.
The fish fall into
appropriate
channels of the
machine that
grade 35 tons of
fish per hour.
Once through
the grading
room, they
move on con
veyor belts to _____
J* 1 ® n '! l ei^'" g These floats can be clipped to a net to
When the brin 9 the net higher or lower to adjust to
conditions.
why pay?
hoppers reach a designated
weight, the bottom opens up and
the fish fall into a plastic-lined
box. Machines give each box a
five-digit code that indicates the
day of processing and the vessel
where the fish originated. This
information is useful for quality
assurance and safety.
The boxes are then moved to
the freezer. Four blast chambers
freeze the fish in a hurry in 17
hours, 75 tons of fish in each
chamber are frozen. The freezing
chambers operate at minus 40 de
grees Fahrenheit.
Fishing, as with any food pro
duction, is subject to regulation,
according to Byme. For example,
scientists establish quotas called
total allowable catches (TAC),
which limit the number of sea
food that fisheries can harvest.
Perhaps farmers, who count
their harvest in numbers of tons,
can appreciate the numbers that
workers at Lund’s Fisheries are
familiar with. According to
Byme, Lunds’ Fisheries is the
largest mackerel producer in the
U.S., harvesting 14,000-16,000
tons of mackerel a year. The
TAC for mackerel is 200,000 per
fishery.
Regulation