ROCKLAND, Maine — One of the last large seafood processing plants in a city once known for them is laying off its 20-person work force and apparently shutting down its facility.
Oak Island Seafood in Rockland is “changing direction” but not closing entirely, according to a man who answered the phone at the company Thursday afternoon.
Repeated attempts Thursday to speak with management to clarify its new direction were unsuccessful.
According to Oak Island Seafood’s Dow Jones description, the privately held company is a scallop and monkfish producer and is “nationally recognized” as one of Maine’s leading producers of fresh and frozen seafood.
The 25,000-square-foot facility has produced some 4 million pounds of product annually and had sales of $17.4 million in the last fiscal year, according to the BNET Industries Web site.
Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, R-Maine, issued a joint pledge Wednesday to help displaced workers.
“We were deeply saddened to learn Oak Island Seafood, which for the past 14 years has served as an economic cornerstone … will be closing its doors,” their statement said. “We will help provide access to any available forms of federal assistance that may assist our fellow Mainers during this tragic time and to help find gainful employment.”
In 2007, Oak Island Seafood was honored as Exporter of the Year by the Maine International Trade Center.
At that time, President and CEO Jay Trenholm told the Bangor Daily News that he named the company after the mysterious Oak Island in Nova Scotia, where rumors of pirate treasure buried in an underground shaft have prompted many treasure hunters to spend their own fortunes searching for it. The shaft has the reputation as a money pit.
“That’s what this is — a money pit,” Trenholm, a native of Prospect Harbor, called his business in the 2007 interview.
At that time, there were 34 people on the payroll.
Trenholm said then that the company started out buying scallops from boats that landed in Rockland but that more recently it had purchased the shellfish from “all over the world.”
The scallops were processed in Rockland, then dispersed all over the world, too. In 2007, Oak Island Seafood sent scallops to Boston by truck every day, and they were flown nightly to Europe, then sold in France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and Italy.
A year ago, the company requested a $100,000 Community Development Block Grant through the city of Rockland with the goal of changing to processing shrimp and lobster. But the company’s wages and benefits did not meet the grant requirements, according to Rodney Lynch, the Rockland community development director.
“It was to compete with the megaplants in New Brunswick,” Lynch said Thursday.
The building that houses the Oak Island Seafood processing plant is owned by Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine, a company that is an important player in the Maine lobster business.
John Petersdorf, president and general manager of Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine, declined Thursday to comment about the future of the building.
The state Department of Economic and Community Development will be contacting Oak Island Seafood to offer assistance, said Mark Ouellette, director of business development office for that state agency.
Marine Resources Commissioner George LaPointe said he wasn’t sure of the impact that the closure of the processing facility will have on the scallop industry in the state.
“It’s a supply chain issue,” he said Thursday. “It’s a shift in how people market their product.”
The scallop industry is the most valuable fishery on the East Coast, even eclipsing lobster, LaPointe said.
But it’s not strong in Maine right now.
“Our catch right now is in terrible shape,” LaPointe said. “We have done some closures along the coast to try to allow the resource to recover.”
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