Fisheries We Serve

Commercial fishing in Alaska is in our blood at IMS. The founding owners fished in Alaska and our first products were developed to meet the unique demands of small salmon boats. Since then, we’ve become the go-to source for refrigeration in Bristol Bay and beyond. Statewide, boats of all types and sizes utilize IMS RSW systems. Alaska processors were among the first to benefit from the FastFreeze portable tunnel production freezer, with its ability to streamline production, reduce costs and provide superior products.

For West Coast tuna, there is a special need to chill or freeze immediately upon harvest due to their warm body temperatures. IMS has developed multiple solutions to this need, one being the Hatch Mount Blast Freezer that drops in for seasonal conversions for those that work in multiple fisheries. The troll fleet (hook and line caught wild salmon) have been able to develop a niche market to high end consumers with onboard blast freezing products from IMS. West Coast processors use IMS RSW for chilling seafood (i.e. holding oysters or cooling cooked crab) and utilize our FastFreeze tunnel production freezers for a variety of fish, including tuna, black cod, and salmon.

Shrimp fishermen have the challenge of maintaining the quality of their catch in a warm climate, which is critical to compete with inexpensive farmed imports. Systems developed by IMS allow shrimpers to catch, process, package and freeze their shrimp onboard - avoiding the degradation that is common in warm weather areas. Shrimp processed and flash frozen onboard aren’t subjected to the unstable temperatures or bruising that can be caused by using most types of ice. In addition to selling their catch to processors, fishermen can also sell their frozen-at-sea shrimp directly to consumers and specialty retailers across the U.S.

The Northeast markets for fish, crab, scallops, clams, and lobsters are served by IMS in a variety of ways. IMS builds onboard live delivery systems for lobster and crab; these are proven successful at achieving near zero dead loss. Fishermen often travel great distances to harvest their catch. These live holding systems maintain temperatures, provide continual flow of new water, and with the addition of aeration, allow them to stay on the fishing grounds longer. In processing plants, product can be held alive and healthy for scheduled shipments to distant markets. The scallop industry utilized our chilling systems for holding product until it can be processed and frozen - both onboard fishing vessels and at onshore processing plants.