"I thought it was as good a piece of salmon as I have ever eaten," Smiley said of a recent taste test of salmon processed by the new method.

Consumers, however, are going to have to take Smiley's word for the foreseeable future. Standing between microwave processed salmon and the grocery shelf are numerous hurdles attached to funding, regulations and a host of unanswered questions.

"There's a lot to work out when you have a project of this magnitude," Smiley said.

The salmon Smiley tasted was processed at the Washington State University in Pullman, where the equipment's capacity only allows for small quantities to be processed at once. There are plans to have a microwave processing device up and running in Kodiak at the Ocean Beauty Seafoods, Inc. facility, however funding for the project has yet to be secured, Smiley said.

But Smiley is confident that the project will move forward.

"We're way ahead of ourselves in the process. As soon as we get the money we're going to hit the ground running," he said. Smiley tentatively expects a microwave device in Kodiak in about 18 months.

Once the microwave is in place the real work begins. The process has so far only been used for small quantities, leaving many questions to be answered in how the high-powered microwave will lend itself to large-scale production. The processed salmon will also need approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before it could be put on the market for consumers. Before the FDA gets a taste of the product, Smiley said studies dealing with food science and microbiology need to be conducted.

If the process seems to be a large undertaking, it is validated by the size of the processing method's potential. Besides being processed in minutes versus hours, Smiley said one of the microwave method's advantages is that it cooks the product evenly. The process should also give the product a longer shelf life, he said.

"A challenge to us at Natick is to have a whole muscle product that looks and tastes like a freshly broiled fillet," said Dr. Patrick Dunne in a press release. Dunne is a Senior Technical Advisor at the Combat Feeding Directorate, a division of the Department of Defense in Natick, Mass. "With retorting, it often ends up being tough and overcooked to make sure all the bacteria have been killed. We also see this technology as doing a really great job with other products, such as macaroni and cheese, scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes."

Smiley said initial tests were conducted on pink and red salmon samples, both producing good results.

One potential customer identified early on is the military, which could purchase the processed salmon for troops. A press release from Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski projected that market could support approximately 1.5 million salmon meals a year. Additionally, Smiley said if approval could be obtained from the strictly regulated Army, getting the product to supermarkets would be much easier.

In addition to questions surrounding how the new technology can be applied to commercial fishing, Smiley said he has been questioned if this new process could threaten the current salmon canning industry. With so many variables still unknown, Smiley could not say if the new method would produce a less expensive product than the current canned salmon. Ultimately, he said, consumers would be the ones to decide if canned salmon was still a viable product if the microwave-processed salmon were to also hit the market.

Smiley also has fielded questions over the use of public funds for a project that relies heavily on private enterprise, in this case Ocean Beauty Seafoods, Inc.

"They (Ocean Beauty) were there first" of private industry groups in the development of the process, Smiley said. "They are not asking for a lock on this; it's just a question of trying to nail it down, get all the bugs worked out."

Smiley said if and when the microwave facility is up and running in Kodiak, it will be open for others to inspect it.

"(Ocean Beauty) will have a head start, not a monopoly," Smiley said.

Smiley also said the university's Fish Tech Center has no interest in proprietary rights to the research.

"The rules are very clear with industrial partners. Information must be publishable within two years...We try and stay away from the proprietary stuff," he said.