Last American Cannery

The sign at the Stinson’s cannery in Gouldsboro, ME. Beach Cliff is the brand name. Bumble Bee, the corporate owner with offices in California, is part of Clover Leaf Seafoods, which is owned by Connors Bros. Income Fund, New Brunswick, Canada.  Fishermen's Voice Photo

While America’s last sardine cannery closed its doors April 15 the company’s 120 employees and the town of Gouldsboro were without prospects. The search for a company that might open a business at the site has produced only rumors of a lobster processing operation. News of the closing of this last cannery has been reported along the entire coast of the United States.

California’s canning industry failed after the collapse of the fishing industry in Monterey Bay in the mid-1950s. Before the collapse, the fishery was one of the most productive in the world. It was memorialized in John Steinbeck’s 1945 novel, Cannery Row.

As the agricultural sector of the California economy grew so did the need for fertilizer and animal feed. To satisfy the growing demand for the fish meal, canneries began using entire fish for reduction rather than just the byproducts. This positioned the sardine industry and the regulatory agency as adversaries regarding the management of the California sardine. This would be the case until the eventual demise of the industry.

Maine had more than 50 canneries a century ago. As recently as the last 10 years there were 5 still operating. A recent cut to the herring harvest was said to be the final blow for the Stinson cannery. The company was started 100 years ago, and before its current owner, the Bumble Bee Company, it was run by the Stinson family for many years.

Fifty years ago herring was still being caught in the many weirs along shore. As a result there were many regional canneries. In the 1990’s larger vessels, the so called mid water trawlers, fished herring offshore and the numbers coming in shore were further reduced.

During these years more herring was going to lobster bait, fish meal, and export, while fewer people were consuming canned sardines, or herring. At the same time challenges to how the herring was being harvested, what the health status of the resource really was, and how scientific data was interpreted, led to larger cuts in the total allowable catch for herring.
This last cut meant there was to little herring for the cannery to remain profitable. The plant was also regional a source of herring for lobster bait. Lobstermen will be facing higher herring costs. Another fear is that the herring that would have gone to the plant in Gouldsboro, now may go to Canada.

The hunt for a company to replace Stinson goes on.

The people and economy in the area are very distressed in an economy that is generally distressed.