Tri Marine International inaugurated over the weekend its Samoa Tuna Processors, Inc. cannery operations at the Atu’u facility and the ceremony has been described by a company official as the fulfillment of the chief executive’s vision to set up a canned tuna plant in the territory.

As previously reported by Samoa News, the company’s investment for the tuna canning plant is $70 million — the biggest one for the territory for some time now.

Some 100 people attended the Saturday ceremony, which included Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga who led the local delegation of government and business officials, plus several off island guests, including top brass of the South Korean based Dongwon industries, owner of StarKist Co., and StarKist Samoa cannery.  Dongwon’s president and CEO, Myoung-woo Lee attended the ceremony.

Top officials of Tri Marine also traveled from the U.S. and among them were Renato Curto, the company’s CEO and board chairman, and chief operations officer Joe Hamby, who has made several visits to the local plant in the past several weeks.

“This inauguration is very significant as it fulfills a vision by Renato to establish a tuna plant in American Samoa to help its people and government,” said Samoa Tuna Processors (STP) general manager Oloipola Herman Gebauer, who added that the STP extends to Pacific nations its facility “as an avenue for their fish to be processed” in the territory.

Catholic Rev. Monsignor Viane Etuale, who presided over the benediction and invocation, told the gathering, “We are grateful to the private companies in working together with the leaders of our government to make sure that we have a healthy economy going forward.”

The inauguration of the cannery “is indeed a bigger blessing and who else can we thank other than God himself who has given us this opportunity to share this momentous occasion with the reopening of these lands” that were given to Samoans by God, he said.

He reminded the audience that Jesus Christ was a carpenter’s son, who “worked with His hands and even associated Himself with fishermen, uneducated fishermen.

“It points to the fact that Jesus himself enhanced the dignity of human labor. And that’s what we ought to keep in mind today, remembering all those people — the men and women, not only in administration, administrating this company but all those people who will be working tirelessly for the development of our economy,” he pointed out.

He also said, “We are grateful to God, we are grateful to our traditional leaders, especially our government leaders for working in partnership with the [private] companies, coming into our territory.

Additionally; “God gave us the main resources — our land and our ocean. We harvest what we grow on the land while we fish in the ocean for our economy,” he said, adding that Tri Marine’s cannery fills the void in the local economy, left behind when COS Samoa Packing closed its operations (in 2009).

In his remarks, Gebauer shared that Tri Marine wanted to make sure that the bad odor or smell that is always associated with a cannery operation is not going to happen at STP cannery. He directed the audience’s attention to the east side of the facility, the site where the “filter”’ operation is located and coconut husks will be used to filter the air coming from the cannery production.

In other words, there will be no bad smell or odor from STP cannery, according to Gebauer, who had also served as general manager for Samoa Packing. He said he has been in this industry for more than 35 years and for those who have been in the canned tuna production for a long time, they are used to a bad smell.

(Tri Marine officials first revealed this filter plan during a news conference around four years ago, months after the company signed the ASG lease to set up operations at the Atu’u site.)

Gebauer went on to announce that Tri Marine has brought in for STP much “high tech” equipment and machinery to ensure that the local operation goes well and in an expeditious manner.  For example, when fish arrive at the unloading dock, it takes less than 10 minutes to have it transferred from the fishing vessel to inside of the facility - unlike those days when fish remained in the hot sun or rain, waiting to be transferred into the facility.

He is also thankful to the company for making sure that cannery operations are air conditioned, unlike past years under previous companies, when the sites where employees work is very hot.

He says that even at the site where the fish are cleaned, it’s also air conditioned, which is also very important when it comes to the quality of the fish. He quickly pointed out that there are federal regulations to ensure the quality of the fish is met.

Speaking on behalf of STP management and employees, he thanked Curto — who is making a very big investment for the facility — for his vision and dream to build a tuna facility in American Samoa to help the community and the government.

He also says that he is just a “servant of the workers who make this job easy for all of us.”

Among those he also thanked were the governor and ASG for their support that made it possible for STP to operate here and he asked for their continued support going forward. Also thanked was former Gov. Togiola Tulafono, who initiated the move and then signed the lease agreement for Tri Marine to set up the STP facility in Atu’u.  Togiola and his wife Maryann attended the ceremony.

See Monday's Samoa News edition for special remarks by Curto and Lolo.