Icicle Seafoods closing last Washington plant

Icicle Seafoods is closing its salmon processing plant on the Duwamish River and outsourcing the work to Independent Packers a few miles north at Pier 91.

Icicle expects to lay off 83 people between Dec. 20 and 31, according to a WARN notice from the state's Employment Security Department. The workers had been responsible for beheading, gutting and filleting salmon from Alaska and Puget Sound.

Icicle president Dennis Guhlke said many of the workers will interview for new jobs at Independent Packers. He was not sure how many openings it would have, and no one from Independent Packers was available to comment on Thursday afternoon.

"They're expanding, so I expect many of those employees will relocate," he said.

Icicle made the outsourcing decision to save money and to bring the salmon processing closer to its corporate headquarters near Fishermen's Terminal, he said.

This past summer, the company sold its only other plant in the Lower 48 states to Trident Seafoods for an undisclosed sum. The Bellingham plant used the white paste known as surimi to make imitation crab and other products.

With revenue of about $400 million a year, Icicle continues to operate four land plants in Alaska and five floating processing vessels that are almost always in Alaska. The company is majority owned by an investment fund called Paine & Partners with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, Guhlke said.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com

This story was originally published Oct. 21, 2010, and corrected Oct. 25, 2010. Icicle's Bellingham plant, sold this past summer, had made imitation crab and other products from surimi. The story originally said it made surimi.