Unalaska, AK – The new seafood processor occupying the former Harbor Crown plant says business has been healthy since it reopened the shuttered plant this year.

Bering Fisheries, a partnership between Copper River Seafoods and the Siu Alaska Corporation, announced the joint-venture last summer. Production started in January and since then general manager Rocky Caldero says the plant is carving a niche for itself by serving the small-vessel fleet.

"Everybody else is very big, we want to focus on the smaller fleet," Caldero said. "When it's time for pollock season the other plants, their main focus is going to be on pollock and our main focus is on everything else."

Everything else being each commercial crab species, Pacific cod, black cod, halibut and rockfish. The plant isn't certified by the American Fisheries Act so it can't process pollock. But that's okay, says Caldero. Instead the business model is based on capitalizing on the untapped potential for small vessels working out of Unalaska and Dutch Harbor.

"With us being here and the new harbor coming online there's going to be working their way out here," he said. "There's a lot of quotas that aren't even tapped into."

Right now things are relatively quiet but Caldero says when its lines are running it can process about 80,000 pounds of halibut a day. And the plant is gearing up for golden king crab in August.

At its peak the plant employs about 100 workers thought during these quiet periods that number is just above 30. The plant property is leased by the Ounalashka Corporation. The original plant had been built by Harbor Crown Seafoods in 2003. But that venture failed with the firm going bankrupt and shutting down for good in 2009.