Setbacks for Ramea’s scallop harvest
Labrador Gem Seafoods owner Danny Dumaresque says he is anxious about having a decent season at Ramea’s scallop plant this year.
A few glitches with a new onboard tank holding system and issues getting independent fish harvesters to provide the raw resource resulted in plant employees working less weeks than they are accustomed to.
Approximately three weeks ago, a new refrigerated, recirculating sea water system that enables a vessel to carry live sea scallops in temperature-controlled water was slightly too high, effectively parboiling the scallops that must arrive to the plant alive in order to be properly processed into the line of products the company produces. The equivalent of a metric ton of finished product had to be discarded.
The holding tank system is a project the company helped to install on an independent harvester’s boat.
“We work with the vessel owner to try and make a change to the vessel that would be a lot more productive, a lot more innovative and a lot more profitable for the vessel,” Dumaresque said. “As opposed to in previous years having to go to sea and only having a certain timeline in which you would have to return, keeping the scallops healthy using ice alone, especially in the summer time.”
The holding system is designed to burn less fuel and avoid unprofitable trips.
“We’re still in the fine-tuning of the system,” Dumaresque said. “The last couple of times the vessel was out, the system worked the way it should. I’m not saying that every kink is worked out. It will take a while, but the last couple of times we’ve seen impeccably highquality product.”
Dumaresque is trying to take the setback in stride.
“The temperature of the water is probably the most critical part of keeping the scallops alive,” Dumaresque said. “I know from the plant side, we’ve recorded the warmest weather that I’ve ever seen in Ramea. The same thing is happening on the St. Pierre bank.
“Temperatures reached 17, 18 degrees Celsius and scallops are used to living in 3-4 degrees Celsius. Lesson learned,” he said. “It happened a year ago as well. That time it was on a truck. Unfortunately the temperature on the truck was set to minus two instead of plus two. When it came to the plant it was frozen solid. Our product has to be alive to keep producing top quality for the international marketplace.”
Labrador Gem Seafoods produces a unique product line that includes serving most of the scallop, including the meat, rowe and frills, in its own half shell.
“Ninety-five per cent of our product leaves in its own original half shell,” he said. “It’s a product form that I discovered nearly 20 years ago when I was travelling in Europe, particularly in Spain and France.”
Dumaresque claims his company is the only one producing scallops this way in North America.
“I grew up in the Straight of Belle Isle where there’s a lucrative scallop fishery but I was always told everything beyond the muscle is poison, you shouldn’t eat it,” Dumaresque recalls. “Therefore much of N.L. and indeed North America, just grew up eating the muscle of the scallop as opposed to any other parts of it, and never eating it in its own shell.
“We wanted to try to do something different and try to carve out a niche in the marketplace.”
Dumaresque maintains this method is more sustainable to harvest.
“We don’t need as much supply,” he said, “because if you are shucking scallops you only need about basically nine per cent of what you pulled aboard the vessel and that’s been happening the last 50-60 years or so in N.L.
“By keeping the scallop in the shell, we’re selling upwards of 50-60 per cent of what we purchased. It doesn’t put the same pressure on the resource, and I believe we deliver a superior product to the international marketplace.”