Bornstein Seafoods

Bornstein Seafoods’ Astoria facility is the “heart and soul” of the company’s processing and production operations, says Executive Vice President Andrew Bornstein. Built in 2005, the plant is very new by industry standards and features vacuum-sealing machinery that can package seafood in individual portions.

Bornstein Seafoods itself is far from new. Founded in 1934 by Myer Bornstein, the company is now in its third generation of family ownership. Brothers Andrew, Kyle and Colin have co-owned and operated Bornstein Seafoods since 2010. This year, they moved the company’s headquarters to Astoria from its original location in Bellingham, Wash.

Bornstein Seafoods is a primary processor of seafood caught by boats operating off Oregon and Washington. The backbone of the company’s workforce is supported by groundfish, which is caught year-round. Groundfish include popular fish varieties like cod, and rockfish. The company also processes a wide range of seasonal fish. There’s Dungeness crab from December to February, cold-water shrimp from April to Halloween, salmon and albacore tuna in the summer, and Pacific whiting from June to October.

Bornstein Seafoods employees about 150 people year-round and as many as 300 during seasonal surges.

The company sells most of the seafood it processes to distributors, which service restaurants, grocery stores and other retail businesses. In recent years, Bornstein Seafoods has invested in in specialized packaging equipment that adds value by vacuum-packing individual portions of fish (see video).

The market for individually packaged portions expanded along with food-delivery companies like Blue Apron, says Andrew Bornstein, and it has continued to grow as grocery stores have stocked prepackaged fish as a way of adding value and reducing spoilage.

Bornstein Seafoods prepackages about 25% of the fish it processes.