The purpose of the grant was to increase the volume of ice available to commercial fishermen of the Kenai Peninsula and improve the percentage of salmon iced at the point of capture. To that end, in February this year, CISB signed a contract agreement with Sunwell Techologies, Inc. of Ontario Canada for two fully self-contained modular ice -making plants.<\/p>\n
The board of CISB selected Sunwell from a list of eight respondents to a Request For Proposals (RFP) released in January. The proposals were thoroughly analysed by a Citizen’s Advisory Committee and this committee unanimously recommended Sunwell equipment to the board of CISB.<\/p>\n
“Ice is the cornerstone of Kenai Wild’s quality and branding program,” Mark Powell, President of CISB, said in a recent interview. “The need for ice in Cook Inlet is acute.”<\/p>\n
Ken Tarbox, Project Coordinator, said: “The proposal we received from Sunwell addressed the multifaceted needs for ice in Cook Inlet and was most comprehensive and the least expensive of all bids received.”<\/p>\n
Sylvia Beaudoin, Executive Director of CISB, said: “Increased ice production is critical to the transformation of this area’s commercial salmon industry. We are moving from production of commodity salmon to supplying a quality, consumer-ready product. Increased ice production is an integral part of this process.” She noted the Sunwell equipment has been used extensively for twenty-five years throughout the world and is a mainstay in commercial farmed salmon operations. “The board of CISB has chosen very well. The grant funds will be invested in equipment that will not only be very low in maintenance, but will add flexibility of distribution and innovate ice usage to our area,” she stated.<\/p>\n
Kenai Wild’s handling and grading practices for wild salmon are the most stringent in the USA. The brand’s focus is to bring a superior product to market. Kenai Wild will utilize Sunwell’s Deepchill Variable-State Ice as part of the quality program commencing in June 2005.<\/p>\n
Beaudoin explained, “The Sunwell variable state ice can be used as either a crystal ice or slurry, which can be pumped directly into slush ice bags or totes, eliminating the need to rotate totes of fish to add ice after weighing. Less handling of the fish decreases bruising and increases efficiency during off-loading and weighing.”<\/p>\n
The Sunwell ice differs from that of traditional flake ice seen in Alaska as it is spherical and fine in texture and will not cause aberration of the salmon. The round ice crystals completely coat the fish, providing a constant uniform temperature, rather than the jagged edges of traditional ice, which has less direct contact with the salmon and causes uneven cooling. Deepchill crystal ice also provides a barrier, which prevents the possibility of bacterial contamination to the fish. The Sunwell ice has been proven to reduce the core temperature of fish in half the time of traditional flake ice, and packs much more densely allowing vessels to carry more ice in less space.<\/p>\n
Sunwell’s Vice President, Simon Goldstein, stated “pairing Kenai Wild with Deepchill is a natural and perfect combination. Like the Kenai Wild brand, the Deepchill fresh brand has a quality assurance program developed by Sunwell to ensure consumers and wholesalers that perishables bearing the Deepchill fresh brand have been chilled and processed using Deepchill Variable-State Ice and thus always maintained in optimal preservation conditions. It’s freshness guaranteed.”<\/p>\n
“Kenai Wild salmon brand is founded on quality and the Sunwell equipment is so much more flexibly and efficient we are proud to bring this technology to our area,” said Elizabeth Chase, fisherman and board member of CISB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Commitment to quality is the foundation of the Kenai Peninsulas regional salmon brand Kenai Wild. In August of 2004, Cook Inlet Salmon Brand, Inc. (CISB) of Alaska, a non-profit corporation shepherding the Kenai Wild\u00e2\u20ac\u0161 branding program, signed a grant agreement for US$725,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-10526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-processing-refrigeration"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10526"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=10526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}