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Project No.: 0172.08.030.033 

Project Name: Alaska Seafood

TELEPHONE CALL RECORD 

 

Date: 12-16-2010 Time: 1 – 2 PM EST 

Call placed by: Betsy Bicknell, ERG Contact Name: Sandro Lane 

Company Name: Alaska Protein Recovery 

Phone No.: 907-463-3447 

GENERAL SUBJECT : ERG draft report of August 13, 3010 site visit to Alaska Protein Recovery, Ketchikan, AK 

 

TOPICS DISCUSSED AND ACTION TAKEN 

After an exchange of emails about the draft site visit report, Mr. Lane and I agreed to talk by telephone. Mr. Lane 

provided some corrections to the report. We agreed that certain process details were not necessary and I agreed to omit 

them from the report. Because of the relationship between Alaska Protein Recovery (APR) and Trident Seafoods, we 

agreed that Mr. Lane would share the revised draft report with Joe Plesha, Trident Chief Legal Officer, to give Trident the 

opportunity to make CBI claims for information about its operations that is included in the APR site visit report. 

Mr. Lane stressed that Trident is running the Cordova byproducts recovery operation using APR’s proprietary process. I 

asked how the new byproduct plant in Cordova was sized. He explained that it was based on the capacity of the Trident 

cannery, 1.5 million pounds of raw fish per day. 

Mr. Lane mentioned that when the Cordova recovery plant first went on line, it caused stress on the community electric 

power system. When Trident started up the plant, the surge in power demand produced some “melt downs” in the 

community power system. The power company has put Trident on a rigid start-up routine so they will not overtax the 

system. Mr. Lane noted that the APR barge that operates in Ketchikan can be self-sufficient because it has its own electric 

power generator. They can operate even without shore power. 

Trident has contracted with APR for marketing the salmon oil. APR is also helping with the hydrolysate, but on an 

informal (non-contractual) basis. Mr. Lane noted that the hydrolysate Trident produced in 2010 did not meet APR’s 

specifications but their 2011 production should. He also noted that the oil Trident produced in 2009 could not be certified 

as food grade because they did not have sufficient documentation that the waste used to produce the oil had been managed 

properly (not touched the floor and properly chilled). 

Mr. Lane also explained that in addition to the type of products produced, an advantage of the APR process compared to a 

conventional fish rendering plant is low odor. The high heat required for drying the meal produces a tremendous odor and 

odor control is costly. 

Mr. Lane gave his permission for ERG to include photos and the process diagram from the APR website in the final 

report. Mr. Lane noted that he plans to simplify the process diagram in the near future, but he has no problem with ERG 

including the current version in the report. 

During the August site visit Mr. Lane mentioned that APR might add additional reactor tanks to the equipment on the 

barge Alaska Venturer. He confirmed that APR was installing the tanks, so the maximum capacity will be 300 to 350 MT 

of fish waste per day. He explained that APR was installing the additional capacity in anticipation of the 2011 salmon 

season. NOAA predicts that the 2011 salmon season in SE Alaska will be 55-60 million pink salmon, compared to 18 – 30 

million in a typical season. In addition to capacity, the additional digesters will allow APR to adjust the reactor time and 

provide more flexibility in processing. 
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I asked Mr. Lane the minimum amount of fish waste that APR could process and he reported 15 MT of fish waste per day. 

He noted that managing the waste processing plants is challenging because they are designed to operate constantly but 

that is not how fish come in. I asked Mr. Lane if APR had made any progress on finding a market for the salmon bones. 

Mr. Lane said they had not and that the bones account for 3-5% of the fish waste (on a dry weight basis). 

I explained to Mr. Lane that I had some literature from GEA Westfalia about their package plant for production of food 

grade fish oil. We noted that this plant has a heater, decanter, and oil polishing centrifuge, but it does nothing with the deoiled fish pulp. Mr. Lane stated that he had thought long and hard about an oil-only process and not a hydrolysate 

operation. He stated that there was at least one oil recovery operation he knew of in Naknek which discharged the protein 

after oil extraction from the waste. Mr. Lane expressed surprise that this type of waste material could be discharged into 

the environment.