Silver Bay Seafoods announced on Tuesday that the acquisition of the Seattle-based, value-added food processing company Orca Bay Foods — whose market includes crab, fish, value-added seafood, battered and breaded vegetables, meat substitutes and vegan products.
“This strategic acquisition provides opportunity for our fishermen owners to not only own their own primary processing plant, but own the secondary processor as well,” said Cora Campbell, president and CEO of Silver Bay Seafoods.
Orca Bay foods will continue to operate as a separate business, with experienced staff and management in place, a well-established brand and strong distribution channels. Campbell said the acquisition marks a significant milestone and opens a door to Silver Bay’s growth in value-added processing and a significant expansion of its already vertically-integrated structure.
Phil Crean, CEO at Orca Bay Foods, said the partnership will provide a unique opportunity to share the extraordinary Silver Bay story and allow fishermen to connect more directly with consumers.
Through a joint venture over the past several years, Silver Bay has supplied large volumes of seafood and Orca Bay has managed secondary processing, sales and marketing.
Silver Bay Seafoods was formed in 2007 by a group of fishermen in Sitka looking for a more sustainable harvest opportunity, premium value, increased quality, efficient processing, and transparency in its market and downstream sales. The company’s success has attracted investment from hundreds of independent fishermen operating in Alaska and California, Silver Bay officials said. In 2022, Silver Bay celebrated its 15-year anniversary as a top salmon buyer with six state-of-the-art, high-capacity Alaska plants, plus three facilities and several offload sites along the California coast serving a robust squid fleet.
Orca Bay foods, founded in 1981, currently has a processing plant in south Seattle, with office headquarters in the city’s SoDo neighborhood.
