Heidi Woodman, quality control manager at Quin Sea in New Harbour, calls this room the "lobster library." The lobsters are stored according to date and location caught. Cold seawater circulates continuously through the system, keeping the lobsters alive until they are ready to be packaged and shipped. - Contributed - ContributedNEW HARBOUR, N.L.
“It’s a lot of record-keeping,” she said, but it’s important to enable the company to ensure customers know exactly where their lobster came from.By the time the lobster fishing season ends in July, the lobster library is full.Meanwhile, she said, “All of them are held here in a dormant state, in one-degree water.
Aqua Production Systems founder Philip Nickerson designed the system and has installed several of them at lobster pounds in Nova Scotia. Quin Sea was his first customer in Newfoundland and Labrador.Chris Fong, the facilities manager at Quin Sea in New Harbour, makes sure the recirculating seawater system is working properly around the clock to keep lobsters alive until they're ready for packaging and shipping.
According to a recent report in Atlantic Fisherman, Canadian live lobster exports totalled $1.16 billion in 2019, $963 million in 2020 and $840 million from January to August 2021.However, Simon Jarding says there is potential for this province to gain ground in this market. The Quin Sea crew at New Harbour include : production manager Craig Whiffen, sale manager Paul Templeman, quality control manager Heidi Woodman, Royal Greenland's manager of N.L. operations Simon Jarding, and facilities manager Chris Fong. - ContributedWork on Royal Greenland’s Fishery Improvement Project began in 2019, with a pre-assessment to identify what would be needed to obtain an MSC blue label.