RANKIN INLET/NUNAVUT - There's something fishy going on at Kivalliq Arctic Foods in Rankin Inlet these days, and that could mean good things for the Nunavut Development Corp.

Kivalliq Arctic Foods plant manager Brian Schindel, left, explains the process of making char jerky to Nunavut Development Corp. president Darrin Nichol in Rankin Inlet this past week. - Darrell Greer/NNSL photo

With no caribou from Southampton Island to work on, the plant has turned its attention to char products and the taste is catching on.

President Darrin Nichol said DevCorp has partnered with Hunters and Trappers Organizations (HTOs) to initiate a winter fishery this year in Coral Harbour, Hall Beach and Iglulik.

The fish is shipped to Rankin and processed at Kivalliq Arctic Foods.

"We also did a small pilot fishery with the Rankin HTO which was successful, given it was the first year for winter char here," said Nichol.

"There is a growing popularity for Arctic char, especially processed product.

"It's a growing market and we're happy with where we're at, although processing in Nunavut continues to be expensive.

"We'd like our products to be more affordable, but the cost of freight can inflate the cost of our products more than we'd like."

Kitikmeot Foods in Cambridge Bay also falls under the DevCorp umbrella (Ikaluktutiak Co-op holds a minority interest), and the rising popularity of Arctic char helped its sales reached $600,000 in 2009.

The company has found a market in top restaurants in the San Francisco area of the U.S.A.

Nichol said Kitikmeot Foods is working through a group called Clean Fish, which promotes sustainable fisheries and environment protection around the world.

He said DevCorp has been moving significant amounts of fresh fish out of Cambridge Bay daily and into the American southwest.

"The market for Kivalliq Arctic Foods, however, continues to be heavily focused on the NWT and Nunavut.

"Quotas haven't been an issue during recent years with our Kivalliq fisheries, because we've been under-fishing and haven't approached levels where quota limits have been reached.

"So, we certainly have capacity to process significant amounts of Arctic char and we have access to the resource."

Nichol said the response from communities involved with the fishery has been good.

He said there are costs to going out and catching fish, especially in the winter.

"It can be a difficult balancing act, in terms of what we can pay in order to keep our products semi-competitive versus what their costs are to go out and bring the fish in.

"We're working with the HTOs and trying to strike a balance where it's beneficial to both the fishers and the plant.

"That's an ongoing challenge, but we enjoy working with the HTOs to get their constituents out there fishing and earning income from what they do best.

"In years past we had so much caribou to process we didn't have a lot of capacity for anything else, but now, with the deferral of the caribou harvest on Southampton Island for at least one more year, we have a lot more capacity to process char."

Kivalliq Arctic Foods plant manager Brian Schindel said he hopes to see the plant process 44,000 pounds of char this winter, with 22,000 pounds of that from the Kivalliq.

He said most of the char is being processed into their Truly Wild brand of char candy, traditional and sliced pipsi (dried fish), premium fillets and hot-smoked and cold-smoked products.

"Our char production should translate into about six months of employment for the five-and-one-half positions at our plant," said Schindel.

"About 70 per cent of our product will be sold in Nunavut and the NWT, and the other 30 per cent in the south.

"We're still trying to develop markets specific to winter fish in the south.

"It's been difficult because people want fresh fish, and it's a challenge to get them to understand our char, frozen almost immediately, is actually fresher than what they look at as fresh fish."

Schindel said items such as char candy (a Kivalliq Arctic Foods original product) are starting to work well.

He said the company is developing another product, char whole-muscle jerky, which he has high hopes for.

"When it comes to the long-term sustainability of this approach, it depends on what kind of fish populations are out there and if we can build the market.

"Nunavut and the NWT markets can only hold so much, so we'd have to conduct test markets in the south to see how our new products would be received.

"Char has always been a higher-priced fish in the south, so getting it there at a price acceptable to the marketplace has always been a challenge.

"We also have to get fish into the market that's consistent in flesh colour and fillet size, because the marketplace demands it can rely on the same type of product coming."