Good Harbor Fillet, the homegrown Gloucester fish processor and distributor that's found a niche with a proprietary fat-blocking process that has made its products popular with schools and the military, has been acquired by a privately-held conglomerate based in Seattle.

American Seafoods Group LLC acquired Good Harbor Fillet for "integration" with its New Bedford subsidiary, American Pride Seafoods.

Terms of the deal with Creo Capital Partners LLC — which pulled Good Harbor out of bankruptcy in 2006, investing $8 million in the settlement — were not disclosed in the Tuesday announcement.

No decisions have been made as to how the deal will affect jobs or operations at the Gloucester facility, a spokeswoman for the parent company told the Times in a telephone interview.

American Seafoods describes itself as "one of the largest integrated seafood companies in the U.S. in terms of revenues."

American Pride Seafoods, meanwhile, is a dominant force in the U.S. Bering Sea pollock fishery via a fleet of factory trawlers.

Good Harbor Fillet president Bill Stride, who founded the company in 1985, referred all questions to American Seafoods Group and Kerry Clift, marketing manager for American Pride in New Bedford.

The acquisition was predicated on integrating Good Harbor into American Pride Seafoods, the New Bedford company that, like Good Harbor Fillet, owns a value-added processing facility and cold storage warehouse as well as a scallop processing plant.

"(Good Harbor Fillet has) a strong history of customer focus and innovation with product lines such as the exclusive, natural NutraPure fat-blocker technology," John Cummings, president of American Pride Seafoods, said in a prepared statement.

The implications for the Good Harbor employees in Blackburn Industrial Park were unclear as of Tuesday, according to Clift.

"The decision has not yet been made how to integrate the companies," said Clift "We appreciate the value that Good Harbor has demonstrated as a value-added seafood manufacturer processor; we are also a value-added seafood manufacturer."

In a press release, Stride said he could foresee "exciting opportunities for Good Harbor from the tremendous expansion of supply resources and access to broader market channels that this deal provides."

American Seafoods Co. was created in 1987 by Kjell Inge Rokke, a Norwegian fisherman who, by 2008, was considered the seventh richest person in Norway, according to the website FIS (Fishing Information and Services Co. Ltd.).

"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," FIS reported.

"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," FIS continued. "This caused American Seafoods Co. to scramble for American owners.

"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," the report added. "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," an organization of Alaskan indigenous peoples, for nearly $82 million.

Along with the 67,000 square foot plant in Blackburn Industrial Park that Stride built in 2003, Good Harbor Fillet has leveraged the fat-blocking innovation perfected on premises and licensed to Good Harbor for its exclusive use in lowering fat in prepared and fried fish products.

The NutraPure protein coatings attracted contracts from Weight Watchers, the New York Public School System, health systems and supermarkets.

Immediately after Creo Capital Partners pulled Good Harbor Fillet out of bankruptcy in 2006, the full- and part-time workforce went from 60 to about 125, the Times reported.

Stride is a second-generation Gloucester fishing business owner. His late father, Bill Stride Jr., was then president of Boston's Turner Fisheries, a high-end purveyor of fish for the finest establishments — up to and including the White House. Stride had cut fish and assembled ice packs for his father during Eastern Point vacations from the family home in Concord.

The small company organized by Stride and a one-time partner grew and became the last major occupant of the Birdseye facility on Commercial Street. From there, the company moved to Blackburn in 2003.

Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000 x3464, or at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.