FFMC Asks Fishers to Suspend Deliveries

FFMC Asks Fishers to Suspend Deliveries

Friday, October 03, 2003 at 14:18

 

 

 

The Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation is asking commercial fishers in Northern Saskatchewan and elsewhere to temporarily suspend fish deliveries.

 

The FFMC says its plant in Winnipeg has been overwhelmed this week with heavy deliveries of fish, and that’s why it’s asking both fishers and its agents to not ship any fish for the next few days.

 

The Winnipeg plant can process about 250-thousand pounds of incoming fish per day. Deliveries from across Western Canada’s inland commercial fisheries over the past week have averaged over 300-thousand pounds per day.

 

CEO Bob Hand says this action is necessary to avoid a serious backlog, which could result in the loss of fish.

 

The corporation says this situation was caused by abnormally hot weather conditions on Lake Winnipeg, which delayed fish deliveries from the lake until just recently. FFMC spokesman Stephen Kendall says, unfortunately, this is also the time when many other fisheries are starting to send in their deliveries, as well.

 

Kendall says the corporation can’t force fishers to comply with the suspension, but he expects most will.

 

Kendall admits that whenever the new fish processing plant in Prince Albert gets built, it will reduce some of the pressure at the Winnipeg plant.

 

This is the 3rd time in 4 years the FFMC has asked fishers to temporarily suspend deliveries. The other suspensions came earlier this year in June and in the fall of 1999.