Fish waste turned into N.S. jobs

A processing plant scheduled to open this month in Yarmouth County will create badly needed jobs by providing an African market for Nova Scotia waste fish.

J.H.S. Fish Products plans to dry the heads, tails and backbones of groundfish from the unused portions of the south shore catches, and sell them as food to African countries.

There is a large market in Nigeria, where the fish parts are used in soups and stews.

Helgi Stefannson, the president of J.H.S. Fish Products, said his native Iceland has for decades been drying and packaging fish parts that many other processors ignore.   Tusket, Yarmouth Co., was a natural place to expand because of the amount of fishing on the east coast, he said.

"There are probably 30 to 40 fish plants from around here that we will take fish from: Newfoundland and Boston area and all over New England," Stefannson said.

Nova Scotia plants stretching from Cape Breton to Yarmouth will provide about half of the 40 tones of fish processed every day once the plant is up to full production.

Diverted from landfill

It means processors such as Arnold De Mings in Middle East Pubnico will have a market for fish parts that all too often end up in a landfill.

"We're all acutely aware of our costs today, so when you have a product that you're looking at as a waste material that you haven't been able to deal well with in the past and you have something that you can do with it now and you can get a little more value for it, it definitely does have an impact on the bottom line," De Mings said.

The plant will create up to 50 jobs, many of them minimum wage. 

The government of Nova Scotia is loaning the company $1.4 million and up to a further $400,000 in payroll rebates.