Les Fumoirs Gaspé Cured
The Gaspé Cured smokehouses, built in 2001, are an example of integrated development. In 1995, two of the Consortium Gaspé Cured plants (Poisson Salé Gaspésien Ltée and Lelièvre Lelièvre & Lemoignan Ltée) invested close to 1.5 million dollars in order to start processing herring, with egg extrusion for the Japanese market and herring freezing for bait. Split herring was then sold to New Brunswick smokehouses for smoking. In 2000, Gaspé Cured shareholders, with the help of the Quebec government, invested close to 2 million dollars in the construction of Gaspé Cured smokehouses in order to diversify production in Gaspé and to therefore create local jobs. As a result, 60 jobs were created within the first 10 months.
Today, the smokehouse has increased their workforce to 80 skilled workers. The annual export volume of smoked herring for 2012 was approximately 300 000 lb. In 2013, the owners plan on building three new smokehouses to respond to the increasing demand on the global market.