McGraw Seafood’s factory on the New Brunswick quay is about to get a significant upgrade with a new automated redfish factory line, from reception to automatic plate freezers.
The goal was clear for McGraw. They wanted to diversify their production, create high-quality products and ensure that the line was adaptative. The result was a high-capacity packing and freezing multi species line, set to be delivered by the end of summer 2025. They went to Danish company Carsoe, where the design team proposed an automatic plate freezer for an efficient and continuous freezing flow, with products packed into 12,5kg freezing trays before entering the complete automated section.
Products are quickly frozen in the double-contact plate freezers and automatically prepared for packing, strapping, and check-weighing sections.
‘Our goal was to implement a reliable freezing solution that would allow for consistent product quality while reducing manual handling,’ said McGraw Seafood project manager Nicolas Forget.
‘The plate freezer allows us to achieve excellent product integrity and traceability while supporting the throughput required for this type of production.’
When adding a new processing line into an existing factory, space, constraint, and processing flow are always the most critical points to consider. The McGraw factory was originally designed for snow crab, and the redfish line represents a new addition.
This is all familiar territory for the Carsoe team, who have completed refits and rebuilds on several seafood factories in the past – both onboard factor decks and onshore processing plants.
‘This is one of the reasons why we chose Carsoe,’ said McGraw Seafood’s general manager Jake Augustine.
‘They presented a coherent, turnkey solution that matched our layout and constraints. Their experience in factory trawler retrofits gave us confidence that they could deliver a project tailored to our environment, in an area of our factory with limited space.’
Both the engineering and production teams at Carsoe have been running at full capacity over the summer to deliver the factory on time. This ensured that the equipment was shipped on time from the production in Denmark.
‘The delivery date of this factory is crucial, as we need to install the factory before the next season begins,’ said Carsoe’s area sales manager Camille Gagné
‘This is a tall order, but we are more than ready.’
The design for the redfish line at McGraw will open new markets for the Canadian seafood company and with continued improvement as a pillar of their business, the new factory has been designed for easy optimisation and further automation to accommodate any future needs.
