High Liner Foods is investing $13 million to upgrade its plant in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, as production is shifted from two idle facilities in Massachusetts to the flagship factory. The move is expected to add 70 jobs to the local payroll, which currently stands 340.
“We could process more profitability in Lunenburg and ship it to the United States,” High Liner CFO Paul Jewer stated in a keynote address to the Atlantic Provinces Economics Council on November 1.
During the speech he confirmed that North America’s largest producer and marketer of value added frozen seafood products, which generated sales of more than $1 billion in 2015 and rang up approximately 75% of the business in the USA, will remain headquartered in Nova Scotia.
Earlier this year the company ceased value added fish processing in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to reduce excess capacity across the North American production network. The action did not affect scallop-processing activities at the site, which continues to take place.
This was its third wave of production consolidation in the past three years, following the closure of former Fishery Products and Viking Seafoods factories in the Bay State during 2013 and 2015, respectively.
