Fish Smoker To The World

Did you know that Greenpoint’s Acme Smoked Fish is the lox smoker to the world? Edible Brooklyn visits “Greenpoint’s unsung smoker” (.pdf):

Every New York Nova-nosher knows the names of the city’s great smoked fish purveyors: Zabar’s, Russ & Daughters, Barney Greengrass. What many may not know is that one Brooklyn company, Acme Smoked Fish, supplies them all with the bulk of their smoked fish products.

Acme is a fourth-generation family-run business whose waters run deep in the borough. Founded in the 1930s by a Russian immigrant, Harry Brownstein, the company’s first smokehouse was a modest 15-person operation in East New York. Today, Acme employs 160 people at a mammoth 65,000-square-foot facility in Greenpoint, half a block from the East River. (Take the G Train to Nassau Avenue and proceed to 30 Gem Street, off Norman Avenue.)

The factory is the largest single-plant producer of smoked fish and herring in the country, processing 30,000 pounds of seafood per day, which arrives daily from fish farms or fishermen in Chile, Scotland, Canada, Norway, and Alaska. Acme’s products, in turn, are sold throughout the country.

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While tours of the Acme plant are not available to the public, virtually all the company’s products are, every Friday, from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. in a makeshift retail store. Prices are low, samples are provided, and freshness is, obviously, beyond reproach.