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Fish Processing In The 21st Century: A Case Study In Process Optimization

United States Seafoods, LLC – Seattle, Wa

United States Seafoods is a leading producer in Alaska (multispecies groundfish fisheries.) The company owns a fleet of five factory trawlers and five trawl catcher vessels, including the largest head and gut factory trawler in the United States. 

An important component of US Seafoods business is processing the fish that is caught and ensuring that the best possible cut is delivered to their customers. Traditionally, US Seafoods, like many other fisheries, manually sorted the fish and placed the fish on a conveyor belt prior to being run through a blade. Since the manual sorting process is subjective, this resulted in inconsistent cuts and losses attributed to recovery. 

To optimize their process workflow and ensure consistency in the cuts, US Seafoods turned to Laserglow for a solution. It was determined that Brightline™ Alignment Lasers should be the best option.


Brightline Alignment Lasers are a series of lasers that are capable of projecting 2D shapes onto target objects, simplifying workflow and accelerating the alignment process. In US Seafoods case, a green line projecting laser was deemed to be an appropriate choice. This green laser line is used as a guideline for properly aligning fish on a conveyor belt prior to being run through a blade to remove the head, to ensure best cut possible cut and maximum recovery. The color green was selected, because the human eye is 4-5x more sensitive to the green over traditional red lasers.


Since implementing Laserglow’s Brightline Alignment Lasers for fish processing, US Seafoods has experienced huge process efficiencies. Not only has the recovery rate increased significantly, but there is consistency in their cuts. It is this commitment to product quality that has resulted in US Seafoods success over the years.