Salmon are
harvested using continuous flow pumps and state of the art flow-through
pneumatic stunning equipment. Once aboard the harvest vessel, fish
are chilled in circulating slush ice where core temperatures reach near
zero Celsius before the fish arrive at the processing plant in Tofino,
approximately 10 km from the farms.
Primary processing takes place at a Canadian government
certified plant owned and operated by
Lions Gate Fisheries Ltd. A skilled crew of mainly First Nations
people eviscerate, wash, grade for quality and size, and pack the salmon
in approved totes with fresh ice; ready for transport.
Temperature
controlled trucks
leave the Tofino plant during the afternoon
of each processing day and traverse Vancouver Island to Nanaimo where they
catch a ferry to the mainland in the evening.
Fish are unloaded the
following morning at Lion Gate's main processing and distribution facility
located in Delta, BC for further value added processing, boxing; ready for
market.
All processing and
distribution facilities are
HACCP approved and Federally inspected by the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
