Torngat

TORNGAT F I SH PRODUCERS CO-OPERAT I VE SOC I ETY LTD . resources are allocated to different individuals; trying to deal with the powerful FFAW (Fish, Food, and Allied Workers) that controls all the fishermen in this province, except for our area – we’re exempt. And how licenses are allocated to an area that’s been left behind due to the collapse of the cod fishery here in the early 1980s.” BVM: Do you have valuable partnerships that are vital to the co-op’s success? Watts: “We are close partners with the Nunatsiavut government. They support us in different aspects of the fishery, and we continue to work with them to advance. A major industry player in offshore shrimp is Mersey Seafoods out of Nova Scotia. We’ve been a trusted partner with them for the last 28 years. They have two factory freezer shrimp trawlers and that pretty much guarantees that our quotas will be harvested, and we rely heavily on our quotas for revenue to operate our fish plants. They are also a very community minded private company.” Johnson: “Our 10 board of directors are elected officials that change from time to time. They have faith in the management to run the business with board oversight – not on a day-to-day basis. We see them as very important and the biggest partnership we have.” BVM: Looking to the future, what are the key goals? Watts: “We intend to grow this co-op and to look at new species for quotas. We are going into the cold storage business, and we have to ensure it works for our business and for other businesses in the area, in order to pay for itself. I would like to think we can sustain the co-op with the present structure and grow as much as possible and advance technologically throughout our different plants; to be able to make the right moves with the direction we’re going, in regard to expansion in the fishery.” Johnson: “We need to diversify our fishery to the resources that are available now. One of the big