who works with seafood processors in 

 designing their plants, also helped 

 them turn a small concrete building 

 into an approved smoked fish process- 

 ing plant. 



"Basically, I worked with them on 

 the building they had," Hill explains, 

 "and developed some plans which in- 

 cluded expansion. In any of these 

 processing plants, you try to set up a 

 good work flow so you're not 



backtracking. At Reef Lite, there is a 

 cool room to keep the raw product 

 chilled, a filleting room where the fish 

 are headed, gutted and brined, the 

 smoke box, and a second cool room 

 where the finished product is air- 

 cooled and packaged. They also have a 

 small retail counter and display case," 

 he says. 



Although there are only two com- 

 mercial businesses in the field now, 



smoking in North Carolina has the 

 potential to offer some competition to 

 the European and other United States 

 markets, according to Thomas. "Many 

 of the smoke houses in the foreign 

 countries are using very sophisticated, 

 computerized machinery, probably 

 more like we see in the ham smoking 

 operations here. And, we have smoking 

 operations scattered in this country — 

 herring in Canada and the North 

 Atlantic states, smoked salmon in 

 California, mullet and other species in 

 Florida, and a lot of smoking in 

 Chicago, the Great Lakes area and 

 New York." 



Thomas admits that it is going to be 

 a while before the average consumer in 

 North Carolina is ready to spend $5 a 

 pound for smoked fish. And, he thinks 

 that a large population with a diver- 

 sified, cosmopolitan background is es- 

 sential to successfully marketing 

 specialty food items. "But, I think 

 there is quite a bit of backyard smok- 

 ing going on," he says, "because we get 

 a substantial number of requests for 

 information. A lot of people are in- 

 terested in it, and they like the flavor 

 smoking gives to food. Everybody 

 loves to do something with food. 

 Besides, it tastes good." 



Photo by Cassie Griffin 



The finished product 



Photo by Cassie Griffin 



Sam Thomas takes out a tray of smoked bluefish 



