CAN-DO Stinson Seafood weathering the tides as the last U.S. sardine packing plant

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On the packing floor of the Stinson sardine cannery, where the smell of fish is strong and the constant whir of conveyor belts requires ear plugs, Lela Anderson is home.

Her feet firm on the cement floor, her silver hair tucked neatly beneath a translucent net and her hands gloved and ready, Anderson knows her routine like the local fishermen know the waters.

Small pieces of herring come fast down an endless conveyor, but Anderson is always faster. Rarely looking down, she deftly stuffs the wedges into oval cans, sending them down the line while simultaneously reaching for the next empty can, a fluid motion perfected over thousands of days.

This has been Anderson’s life for five decades.

“If I wasn’t doing this, I’d be at home all by myself doing nothing,” the 75-year-old from Corea said during a recent interview on her lunch break.

Besides, she added, “I like the work.”

Anderson’s story is a parable of the Stinson cannery, defying the odds to survive the demise of an industry that dominated Maine into the 1960s. In fact, the Stinson plant is not only the last remaining sardine cannery in Maine; it’s the only one left in the entire United States.

Still, workers like Anderson keep getting older, and the plant’s production has decreased steadily as problems with herring supply and the nationwide decline in sardine consumption weigh on the cannery.

But the facility has received nearly $12 million in renovations since 2000, a sign that its Canadian owner, Connor Bros. Ltd., is dedicated to keeping the plant open.

“We’ve put extensive dollars and investment into that facility. We feel it strategically fits our needs,” said Dave Melbourne, a senior vice president at Bumble Bee Seafood LLC of San Diego, which merged with Connor Bros. in 2002.

With the arrival of the new year, Stinson Seafood and its 150 employees operate with the hope that their plant will continue for many years to come.

“A way of living in this area has gone by, but we’re still here,” said Diana Young, who oversees the plant’s logistics department. “And we’re lucky to have this place and all the people who make it run.”

And then there was one

Lela Anderson started as a teenage sardine packer in the 1940s.

“I was looking for a job during the summers,” she said, seated at a table inside Stinson’s lunchroom. “This seemed like as good a job as any.”

Over the past 50 years, while Anderson has raised two children who now have their own children, Maine’s sardine industry has all but disappeared before her eyes.

When Calvin Stinson Sr. opened the Prospect Harbor cannery in 1927, sardines were staples in the lunch pails of blue-collar workers everywhere.

In the early 1900s, as many as 75 sardine canneries dotted the state’s jagged coastline from Kittery to Eastport, but as demand for the product dwindled, so did the number of canneries.

Even as recently as the mid-1990s, the sardine industry funneled about $40 million into Maine’s economy and employed more than 1,000, but still the decline continued.

In 2000, Connor Bros. purchased the last four canneries in the state, Stinson’s plants in Bath, Belfast, Lubec and Prospect Harbor.

A year later, the Lubec and Belfast canneries closed. Nearly 200 workers lost their jobs.

Connor Bros. merged with Bumble Bee in 2002 and consolidated operations further. In early 2005, the Stinson plant in Bath closed, putting another 50 employees out of jobs and leaving the Prospect Harbor location as the state’s sole sardine producer.

“It came down to who could operate the best at the lowest cost,” said Stinson general manager Roger Webber, who ran Stinson’s plant in Belfast for many years. “That turned out to be this plant.”

That was good news for Anderson, who has punched a time clock for 51 years now. After she graduated high school in 1949, Anderson left the Schoodic Peninsula briefly only to end up back at Stinson.

“I tried doing other things,” she said. “But it turns out I didn’t like anything else.”

Change is good

From the outside, the aluminum and brick cannery and giant yellow “Stinson Man” statue overlooking Prospect Harbor seem like relics from a long-forgotten industry.

Inside, though, the cannery is a testament to assembly-line technology, and many consider the facility to be the most modern sardine factory in the world.

That wasn’t always the case.

Back in Lela Anderson’s prime, everything was done by hand, she said, recalling the days when she used scissors to cut the heads and tails off the fish in one swift motion.

“With the scissors, I was always the fastest,” Anderson boasted in the lunchroom, demonstrating her nimble technique. “I’m not the fastest anymore, but I still do all right.”

Now the cutting, like many other tasks at Stinson, is done by machines that don’t get tired. Human error is less a part of the equation.

Recent upgrades to the facility – new flooring, electrical wiring and the installation of modernized sealing, cutting and sterilizing machines – have breathed new life into the plant.

“[Connor Bros.] decided it wanted to put all its eggs in one basket, and this factory was that basket,” Webber said. “We were willing and able to make changes; that’s how we survived.”

“All the capital improvements have allowed us to maximize operations,” added John Viechnicki, Stinson’s quality assurance manager. “Now 30 workers are doing what it used to take 100 to do.”

But the renovations haven’t decreased the need for a strong work force. Even machines need to be run by workers, and most at Stinson agree that the plant’s efficiency can be traced directly back to laborers like Anderson.

“I know I’d never be able to be here so long if it weren’t for the people downstairs working as hard as they do,” said Young, who has worked in nearly every capacity at the plant over the last 30 years.

Peter Colson, the plant’s manager and a second-generation sardine man, said that while Anderson’s strong work ethic and longevity are inspiring, they are common traits at Stinson.

A plaque inside the plant’s lobby lists the names of workers who have given 20 years to the company and the list is long.

“Some people might say this is a lousy place to work, but you know what? It pays the bills,” Colson said.

Challenges remain

Confidence in their operation aside, Stinson’s administrators understand that challenges remain.

While the work ethic displayed by Anderson typifies many of her colleagues, so does her age.

“The big question now is: What’s going to happen to the labor force when all these people leave?” Young said.

A work force shift already has begun, said Colson, who routinely relies on temporary agencies for about 20 percent of Stinson’s labor force.

“It’s been harder and harder to retain employees, especially the laborers,” he said.

Colson often hires migrant workers from the area and even employs the homeless who come from Bangor, Portland and Boston to work.

Melbourne, however, said Connor Bros. isn’t worried about any long-term issues with the employee base in Maine.

“We know what it takes to run that plant, and we’ll continue to utilize temporary laborers,” he said. “I can assure you that there will be recruiting efforts as well.”

But Anderson’s hands can only pack as many sardines as come through the plant.

Al West, Stinson’s director of fish acquisitions, has been dealing with depleted fish supplies for years.

Last year, West negotiated a deal with a Massachusetts company to fish for herring farther out from Maine’s coast.

“The resources closer to shore are drying up. We need to be creative,” he said.

Fish supply affects the plant’s production.

An agreement with the state of Maine that was in place when Connor Bros. purchased Stinson now calls for 450,000 cases annually and will keep the facility open at least until 2013.

Since 2001 the deal has been renegotiated twice, a reflection of the amount of fish coming into the plant.

The plant’s output now ends up primarily overseas.

Domestic consumption of sardines has dropped nearly 70 percent in the last half-century. Today only about 7 percent of Americans eat them.

The International market, particularly in Mexico, South America and the Scandinavian countries, is still strong, but now that’s where the competition is heading.

“It’s something we’re thinking about,” Webber said. “But what it comes down to is that we put out the best product.”

Away from the production floor at Stinson, marketing teams are working to put sardines back in households by advertising their health benefits.

“More and more what we’re starting to focus on is consumer education, marketing and finding new uses for sardines,” Melbourne said. “They are a great source of protein and Omega-3 fatty acids.”

Looking forward

Anderson knows she can’t work forever, but she still likes coming to work each morning and the money is good.

Donna Eklund, 37, of Steuben, a fellow employee who sat across the lunchroom from Anderson, shares a similar attitude. While Eklund doesn’t have her colleague’s silver hair, she has been at the plant since 1987 and has no intention of leaving anytime soon.

“I started here because I was looking for something to do after school,” she said. “But I decided that this was a beautiful place to live and work. I’ll stay as long as they keep me.”

Stinson managers hope more employees like Eklund replace the likes of Anderson in the coming years.

“All we can do is try to run this factory the way we know how, but we’re pretty proud of it,” Webber said.

That pride has given an economic lift to the entire Schoodic Peninsula, which has no other large-scale employers, especially since the U.S. Navy base left in 2002.

“It seems like every single person in this area has a friend or a family member who has worked in the sardine industry,” Viechnicki said.

As long as fish are coming into the plant, sardines will be moved out. But down the road Webber said that the cannery may need to find new uses to stay afloat.

“We have the capacity to do other things and bring in other types of equipment. That probably will happen sooner or later,” he said.

“We’re all optimistic about the future,” added Viechnicki. “I think everyone is looking forward.”

Even the 75-year-old Anderson, who has finished the interview and is back to eating her lunch and chatting with co-workers, is looking forward.

“It doesn’t do any good to worry about changes,” she said. “I can’t stop them anyway.”

Besides, in a few moments lunch will be over and she’ll be back on the packing floor, falling into a rhythm she knows by heart.