A planned new shellfish processing plant in Bremen could add new jobs and new products, according to Boe Marsh, owner of Community Shellfish LLC.
Currently the company employs between 12 and 20 people, depending on the season, at the space it rents from the Bremen Lobster Pound Co-op, but the number of employees could increase to 15 to 25 in total with the new plant, Marsh said.
At present, Community Shellfish processes soft shell clams and shrimp (when in season), but would process lobster and crab meat and deal in scallops and possibly oysters once the new plant is completed, Marsh said.
Marsh expects the new location will be good for the town and will serve as a focal point for the region.
“There’s no real processing plant, anywhere,” Marsh said.
Processing the shellfish locally helps keep jobs locally instead of shipping the shellfish out of state, he said.
“We’re providing jobs that take advantage of putting on the value-added here,” Marsh said.
Before any processing begins, however, the building which stands on the location for the proposed plant needs to be replaced, Marsh said.
“We are going to remove the whole building and start from scratch,” Marsh said. “It’s not in good shape.”
The design for the new building is still being finalized, but could range anywhere from 3500 to 5000 square feet and is planned as a single story red building with a metal roof, Marsh said.
“It’ll look more like an agricultural building than a processing building, which is the idea, so it blends into the aesthetic of the town,” he said.
Planning Board Chair David Koubek confirmed board found the site to be grandfathered from going through the site plan review of the commercial and industrial site plan ordinance because the site met the ordinance’s definition of “use.”
The related section of the ordinance reads, “A use of land or buildings lawfully existing at the time of adoption of this ordinance is exempt from the provisions herein, providing there is no change in use thereafter,” according to the minutes of the Planning Board’s Aug. 13 meeting.
“The building, which was formerly the Hockomock Bottling Company, had been maintained and the electricity had been left on and the equipment within the building was all in place. Therefore the definition of ‘use’ did qualify,” Koubek said.
Along with a sanitation method to be used within the plant, specific sealed bio-mass dumpsters designed to hold the shell waste will help combat any smell around the plant, Marsh said.
“Our whole idea is to be very low key, … not to cause our neighbors any angst from having a processing plant,” he said.
Marsh said he hopes to have the new building complete by the first quarter of 2014.
“I hope to break ground by November in the new building. Maybe that’s aggressive, but I’m going to try,” he said.
In addition to Bremen’s rich shellfish harvesting areas, the people of the area help round out Community Shellfish’s business model, Marsh said.
“It’s because of the great area and it’s because of the great people who work for us that are really making this thing go,” Marsh said.
