Cooke Aquaculture provides new hope to small Maine communities
USA: Cooke Aquaculture is planning to reopen its Machiasport processing plant. The plant was acquired as a part of the deal when Cooke bought Atlantic Salmon of Maine in April 2004.
The reopening of the plant is great news for the small Machiasport community and could mean that as many as 80 new jobs.
With the Atlantic Salmon of Maine acquisition, Cooke also acquired several aquaculture lease operations and hatcheries in Solon and the Rangeley of Oquossoc, in addition to the processing plant.
In addition to Machiasport, the town of Eastport was vying for Cooke to invest there. Though Eastport may have lost first round, the town's city manager is still hopeful that Cooke also will come to his town. When Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Aquaculture met with Maine's governor, John Baldacci, in 2006, the company announced plans to invest USD 60 million in stocking salmon in Maine. It is some of this investment Eastport is still hoping for. Cooke's involvement in Maine aquaculture could have been much higher, but based on rulings by the state attorney general and allegation that the company would gain more or less monopoly status, the company surrendered several leases. It also divested or sold two sites in Cobscook Bay known as Prince Cove and Rodger's Island.
Since then the industry foundered and Cooke couldn't keep the Machiasport plant open but they returned to the sate and in 2006 about 3 million fish were put into the water. Only a year earlier the entire Maine farmed salmon industry had only about 300,000 fish in the water.
The Machiasport plant, which began operation in 1987, is viewed as an overall good facility. The company is completing some upgrades at the plant and production is expected to begin next year.
Cooke expect to hire almost 40 people when they start, but once all the lines are working, they anticipate employing 80 people in full-time year-round jobs.
