Maine Coast Lobster celebrates grand opening of Boston facility

Maine Coast Lobster hosted a welcoming event on Thursday, 14 July to celebrate the opening of its new facility in Boston that will allow the company to increase its regional distribution and better respond to requests for rapid-ship orders both domestically and internationally.

The 5,000-square-foot leased facility on the Boston Fish Pier will have the capacity to hold up to 30,000 pounds of lobsters. The building will complement the company’s much larger headquarters in York, Maine, which can hold up to 150,000 pounds of lobster, company founder and president Tom Adams told SeafoodSource.

“As a company, we’ve been growing fast and expanding quickly. We were looking for new opportunities not only for sales but for purchasing product as well,” Adams said. “We have a strong presence buying out of Maine and Canada, but we recognized lobsters are also bought and sold down here in Massachusetts and we wanted to take advantage of that as well. When we heard this space was coming available here at the Boston Fish Pier, we were immediately intrigued from the perspective not only of sales, but also purchasing and brand awareness.”

Maine Coast’s live lobster sales are growing 25 to 50 percent annually, Adams said, with about 60 percent sold internationally and 40 percent sold domestically. The Boston location will help the company fulfill rapid-ship orders using both ground and air freight, utilizing the nearby Logan International Airport. Adams said he was confident the company will be able to sell as much as 5,000 pounds of lobster per day out of its new Boston location.

“Based in Maine, it can be next to impossible to react to orders requesting lobster four to six hours in advance of when they have to be in Boston, but from here we can do that easily,” he said.

The facility will also help with company’s plan of diversifying its markets so it can sell a more even amount of lobster throughout the years, instead of remaining reliant of peak seasons in choice markets.

“Like any seafood business, we have our peak seasons, but as a company we are trying hard to level those out a little bit. As a company, we want to achieve a year-round focus on shipping live lobsters around the country and the globe, ensuring we have a steady market 12 months per year,” Adams said.

Boston location’s convenience for international clients will also help in marketing efforts, he added.

“Boston is an incredibly dynamic city, becoming better known and respected worldwide by the day. Having a presence in a major international city that clients are already flying into several times a year made sense to us,” Adams said. “We can have potential clients flying in from Korea, China or Germany, and we can say, ‘Come visit our headquarters in Maine if you have the time, but if you don’t, let’s meet in Boston.’ It’s convenient and we’ve built it so that it’s a great place to showcase our company and its products.”

Maine Coast completely renovated the entire building, which was formerly the home of Red’s Best (now based in a bigger location further down the pier). It now contains a main bay with the central lobster holding pen and second-floor offices and meeting rooms.

Adams said eventually, he’d like Maine Coast to broaden its offerings to include processed lobster meat, frozen lobster tails and other value-added products, but for now, the company will focus on its core business of live lobster sales.

“Myself and the Maine Coast team are extremely excited to be in Boston, partnering with a group of fantastic businesses here and working to make our brand more internationally and domestically known,” Adams said.

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