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Pacific Choice Seafood to be featured on CNBC for
innovative waste-reduction efforts
Vivian Dunlap, The
Eureka
Reporter
May 5, 2008
“This has been a dream of mine for many years,” Rick Harris,
general manager of Pacific Choice Seafood, said of the company’s
plan to do its part in reducing waste through a new partnership with
Converted Organics Inc., which will convert fish byproducts, such as
shrimp and crab shells, into organic fertilizer.
“This will be a great thing for the environment. We’re excited as
heck about it,” Harris said.
The company’s new partnership with Converted Organics caught the
attention of CNBC, which sent journalists to interview Harris on
Monday as part of a “Businesses Going Green”-type feature.
For Harris, the move is just one more step Pacific Choice has taken in
an ongoing conservation effort. To name a few, Harris recently
implemented a “bring your own cup to work” policy in an effort to
eliminate paper cups, is working on eliminating all Styrofoam and has
begun using Greenshield boxes for shipping.
Greenshield boxes are created by Georgia Pacific and are touted as an
alternative to the non-recyclable heavily waxed boxes used to ship
such items as meat, poultry and fish products. They are made
moisture-resistant by a specialized wax coating that makes them 100
percent recyclable, George Pacific’s Web site states.
Making changes to packaging is one thing, but tackling a new way to
dispose of the tons of fish byproducts taken to landfills annually was
another, Harris said.
“We could see the value to get it out of the landfills,” he
explained, so he got in touch with a company in Gonzales called
California Liquid Fertilizer, which converted fish byproducts into
organic fertilizer that was gaining in popularity among agriculture
farmers in the area.
“We sent some samples to them and they liked them and were
interested,” he explained. Soon, the idea grew that a potential
partnership could be formed that would be mutually beneficial to both
industries.
“For the last year and a half we’ve been talking on a regular
basis,” Harris said, and recalled pointing out to his potential new
partner, California Liquid Fertilizer owner Peter Townsley, that
“there are Pacific Seafoods up and down the coast — who knows how
far this will go.”
Then, two weeks before the deal was to be signed and the partnership
made official, Townsley sold his company. That was the first Harris
had heard of Converted Organics — a Portland, Ore.-based company —
which honored Townsley’s agreement to partner with Pacific Choice.
Now, the fish byproducts will be processed on site at Pacific Choice
Seafoods’
Eureka
plant and shipped to Converted Organics’ new Gonzales plant to
complete the manufacturing process.
While the overall amount of byproducts produced has been reduced in
recent years due to increased demand from purchasers, Harris said
there was a time a few years ago when the company would send 40 to 50
truckloads of byproducts to landfills every year.
“That’s basically gone — over with now,” he said.
“It’s extremely exciting for us,” Harris said of all of the
changes being made at his plant.
“It’s a green year for us.”
Harris was told CNBC’s feature on Pacific Choice Seafoods is slated
to run on or around May 16.
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