Icicle Seafoods, Inc., a major harvester and processor of wild and farmed seafood in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, is for sale. Private equity investment firm Paine & Partners bought Icicle in 2007 and is now looking for a buyer.
Icicle Seafoods began in 1965 when a group of employees and fishermen in Petersburg, Alaska bought the Pacific American Fisheries cannery. The company has grown to own and operate on-shore canneries in Seward, Homer, Egegik on Bristol Bay, Larsen Bay on Kodiak Island, and Wood River out of Dillingham. They also own and operate processing ships and fishing boats throughout Alaska and process salmon, pollack, and crab.
Icicle also runs a farmed salmon business in the Pacific Northwest, with farms at Bainbridge Island, Cypress Island, Port Angeles, and Hope Island, WA. They also expanded to a farmed salmon venture in Chile, raising and selling farm-raised coho and Atlantic salmon.
The seafood world is wondering if Icicle will be sold as a whole or broken up into sections, such as wild seafood versus farmed salmon.