The Company harvests and processes a variety of fish species aboard its sophisticated catcher-processor vessels, its freezer-longliner vessels and at its land-based processing facilities, and markets its products to a diverse group of customers in North America, Asia and Europe. In the U.S., American Seafoods is the largest harvester and at-sea processor of pollock and hake and the largest processor of catfish. In addition, American Seafoods harvests and/or processes additional seafood, including cod, scallops and yellowfin sole.
American Seafoods Company was created in 1987 by Kjell Inge Røkke, a Norwegian fisherman who had quit school at 16 to go to sea.In 1998 the American Fisheries Act (AFA) passed, requiring that certain fishing companies, including those engaged in the Alaska pollock and cod fisheries, to be American-owned.This caused American Seafoods Company to scramble for American owners.(In 2008, Røkke was considered to be the seventh richest person in Norway)
Eventually a group of U.S. investors led by Centre Partners Management purchased the company in 2000 for $485 million and created American Seafoods Group as a holding company.
In 2006 Centre Partners sold its nearly 23 percent equity interest in the company to a management group led by Bernt O. Bodal, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, and Coastal Villages for nearly $82 million.