Guests of Honor Fail to Show at Debut of San Pedro Fish Co-op

Ambitious plans by a group of Los Angeles commercial fishermen to process mackerel at a cannery they bought from Star-Kist Foods ran into a snag last week when an essential ingredient failed to materialize--the fish.

The San Pedro Fisherman’s Cooperative Assn., a group of about 30 people who recently purchased the Terminal Island cannery for $1.6 million, were geared up to can mackerel starting last Monday.

But the fish apparently sensed something was up.

Despite the fishermen’s best efforts throughout the week, there was not a mackerel for canning. One fishermen strayed as far north as Monterey in search of the usually abundant species, but to no avail.

“Everybody’s on pins and needles,” Frank Iacono, the cooperative’s 65-year-old general manager said last week. “We’re just waiting for the fish.”

“It’s unusual,” Iacono admitted, noting that one reason fishermen may not have come up with enough fish to start canning is that “there’s a full moon coming up next week. . . . It’s hard to say.”

The cooperative, whose members net most of the fish caught off the local coastline, entered into talks with Star-Kist to buy the cannery after the company announced in December that it was closing the plant.

Star-Kist said it was stopping the canning of mackerel for human consumption because it was unprofitable. Fishermen were concerned that the cannery’s closing would mean one less place for them to sell mackerel, which has become the fleet’s predominant catch.

“It was a do-or-die situation,” Iacono said of the fishermen’s decision to buy the cannery. “These boats now have a very good chance of surviving again.”

Iacono said the cooperative won out over three other bidders for the cannery. A total of 22 cooperative members each contributed $20,000 for a down payment toward the $1.6 million purchase from Star-Kist.

Besides the reopened cannery, there are only two others in the Los Angeles area, both on Terminal Island in the Port of Los Angeles. They are a Star-Kist pet food cannery using mackerel and a facility operated by Pan Pacific Fisheries, which cans mackerel and tuna.

Although Star-Kist wanted out of the cannery purchased by the fishermen, it agreed to buy canned mackerel from the cooperative and continue marketing it under the company’s Eatwell brand. The fishermen have signed a five-year contract with Star-Kist that could mean $10 million annually in gross earnings for the cannery, Iacono said.

To operate the 172,000-square-foot facility, cooperative members are relying on what Iacono refers to as the “over-the-hill gang”--a handful of retired Star-Kist employees. For instance, Andy Trutanich, who worked for Star-Kist for 46 years before retiring in 1983, will oversee canning operations.

Trutanich, 68, recalls well how the cannery was rebuilt after it burned down in 1973, when fish meal caught fire. The cannery now is fully modernized and has the capacity to process 200 tons of fish a day.

“This is the Cadillac of mackerel facilities,” Trutanich said.

Despite Star-Kist’s decision to close the plant because it was unprofitable, the fishermen contend they can make money canning mackerel. Iacono said he does not believe Star-Kist fully exploited potential markets for the fish, which is oily tasting and has never been popular with consumers.

For example, the cooperative hopes to increase exports of the fish.

Moreover, Iacono said, the cooperative can operate the cannery with lower overhead costs than Star-Kist. Only five salaried employees have been hired by the cooperative to work at the cannery, he said.

Iacono said the fisherman are still negotiating with the United Industrial Workers Local 24 to determine a wage and benefit package for cannery workers. But the cooperative already has arranged to hire some of the 200 Star-Kist workers who were laid off, many of whom were on alert last week,) ready to report to work.

Iacono said that only mackerel brought in by cooperative members will be processed at the cannery, unless orders placed for the fish exceed what members catch. The fisherman will charge the cannery the prevailing market price, and stand to make more by dividing any profits.

Although Star-Kist officials declined to discuss specific details of the cannery sale, Roy Scharer, a group vice president for Star-Kist’s pet food division, said the company stands to gain.

“I think more important than the money itself,” he said, “was the total concept of maintaining a source of supply so we could continue our mackerel business uninterrupted with somebody we knew, have confidence in and have been doing business with forever.”