New Bedford, Massachusetts-based Northern Pelagic Group (NORPEL) opened the doors of a new plant in northeastern Pennsylvania that serves a market for pet food made with fresh and frozen seafood.
NORPEL already has two midwater trawl vessels, two processing facilities and three cold storage facilities in New Bedford.
"The main point of the new Pennsylvania plant is to add capacity, as we are tapped out in New Bedford," NORPEL President Brady Schofield told IntraFish.
The new processing facility will be its first operation outside of New England.
The company's 70,000-square-foot processing facility is complemented by a 25,000-square-foot cold storage facility.
The new facility also features three processing lines that will expand the company’s capacity on existing products and enable new opportunities for product innovation and specialization, according to NORPEL.
The facility includes a pet food “prep kitchen” that produces fresh and frozen proteins at the site for pet food manufacturers, creating 80 full-time jobs -- double the company's current workforce.
Schofield said the most popular seafood species for pet food have been salmon and whitefish, and the company is looking to source more product from Marine Stewardship Council-certified species as its portfolio grows.
"We shipped our first orders of pet food at the end of 2015. It's been a fun ride so far, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us next," he said, now that the new facility is operational.
The company plans to maintain its two processing facilities and its sister company Waterfront Coldstore in New Bedford, Schofield said.
