Governor LePage Celebrates Opening of Central Maine Cold Storage in Bucksport

Bucksport, Maine - Governor Paul R. LePage cut the ribbon at the formal opening of Central Maine Cold Storage’s new facility in Bucksport on Thursday afternoon.

Central Maine Cold Storage is a new, state-of-the-art seafood custom freezing and storage facility located in Bucksport, Maine. They offer more than 80 years of combined experience in the frozen foods industry to meet all of customer's seafood Individually Quick Frozen, blast freezing, frozen storage, packaging and shipping needs.

“I commend Central Maine Cold Storage for finding a cost-efficient way to meet the needs of Maine seafood harvesters who would have otherwise continued to send their fish to Canadian facilities,” said Governor Paul R. LePage. “I am proud of your sense of entrepreneurship, finding a void in the market and filling it. Bucksport, Maine is certainly still a viable place to do business. Central Maine Cold Storage is proof of that.”

This new facility brings custom food freezing and storage capacity closer to Maine lobster harvesting
operations, creating 15 jobs with a $2 million dollar investment.

“We greatly value the programs that the state provides to private businesses when in the business start-up phase,” stated Brian McCarthy, CEO of Central Maine Cold Storage. “Efficiency Maine helped make our decision to incur the upfront capital costs for a tremendously efficient lighting system an easy one. The Cooperative Extension program of the University of Maine's Food Science Department assisted us with the conceptual design of our facility and advised us on our processes, food safety and USDA and FDA compliance. We are proud to be located in Bucksport.”

Governor LePage noted, “Thanks to you, our harvesters and consumers will no longer have to see their catch labeled "Maine Seafood...Product of Canada" on the packaging. You guarantee a Maine branding. A Maine lobster shouldn’t be labeled anything but a product of Maine!”

Central Maine Cold Storage saw a void in the market for freezing the seafood harvested from Maine’s waters, with between 60 and 70 percent of these products being processed by Canadian facilities. Central Maine Cold Storage now offers an on-demand service of custom freezing and packaging to Maine seafood harvesters.