Inland Seafood has formed a partnership with Music City Seafood, a wholesale distributor based in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A., the company said in a press release on Tuesday, 18 September.
Music City Seafood owner Tom Neville, who bought the company in 2017, said he is looking forward to continuing to grow with Inland.
“We believe in building relationships,” Neville said. “Working with Inland is going to help us leverage our strengths: customer service and quality seafood.”
Music City Seafood was an attractive partner due to the fact that it has built a strong local following by distributing high-quality, responsibly-sourced seafood to restaurant and retail customers around the Nashville area, according to Inland.
“The alliance will better serve the needs of both company’s customers in the Nashville area while building on Music City’s existing relationships and infrastructure,” the company said.
Atlanta, Georgia-based Inland has already operates an extensive distribution network in the U.S. Southeast, with distribution facilities in Tucker, Georgia; Charlotte, North Carolina; Birmingham, Alabama; and New Orleans, Louisiana. The company also owns and operates a USDA inspected value added facility and cold-storage plant in Birmingham, as well as a ready-to-eat seafood salad plant in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and fish-smoking plant in Atlanta. The company also operates a lobster processing facility in South Portland, Maine, and manages five lobster-buying stations in the U.S. Northeast.
“Even as we grow as a company our focus remains on servicing our customers; what they want is a strong local presence,” Inland Seafood Executive Vice President Stephen Hall said. “Partnering with the team at Music City Seafood aligns us to do what we do best while giving us an opportunity to continue to be an active part of Nashville’s growth.”
The partnership speaks to a larger aspect of Inland’s growth strategy – investing directly in the communities that it services according to Inland Seafood President Chris Rosenberger.
“As a 100-percent employee-owned company, we always want to build shareholder value. One way we do that is by investing in local communities,” Rosenberger said in the release. “We’re excited to bring our employee-ownership model to Nashville and throughout the [S]outheast.”
