Only 100 workers at Americian Samoa's Samoa Tuna Processors will keep their jobs when the cannery closes its canning operations next week.
Cannery, American Samoa Photo: Supplied
The chief operating officer of Tri Marine International, which owns the company, Joe Hamby, said the final day of production is most likely December 16.
The partial shutdown, which will put about 700 people out of work, has been put down to adverse business conditions.
The company had been banking on large scale customers buying its tuna.
Mr Hamby said STP didn't have a brand and were hoping markets would respond to other factors over price.
"The US market isn't well informed about the sustainability issues to the point they can make intelligent decisions in the supermarket, to say 'well this is sustainable caught product or it is not. Or this is coming from American Samoa or its not. There is no advertising in the private label market or the food service market, and those are the two markets we are targeting because we didn't have our own brand," he said.
