Last year, Icy Waters was recognized with the Best New Retail Product Award at the 2025 Seafood Excellence Awards, held at Seafood Expo North America in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
The Bedford, New Hampshire, U.S.A.-based company received the award for its Atlantic Salmon with a Guinness Sweet Honey Mustard Melt & Panko Crumb, created in collaboration with Good Fish Co. of Ireland.
“We entered this kind of at the last minute. We did it for visibility purposes and just being a credible supplier to our customers.” Randy Lavault, a partner at Icy Waters, told SeafoodSource at the time of their win. “We are honored. It’s a small company. We’re fortunate to have partners we trust. I’m honestly lost for words.”
A relatively new company, Icy Waters was founded in October 2023. According to Lavault, the company’s partnership with Good Fish Co. of Ireland has allowed it to bring new, creative flavor profiles to the U.S.
“We wanted to bring a little bit of a new twist to the seafood world and offer products that were convenience items and value-added items and do things a little bit differently with co-branding agreements and that sort of thing,” Lavault said in a podcast interview.
For its Atlantic salmon product, Icy Waters worked with Good Fish Co. and an Irish ingredient supplier to develop a Guinness-infused melt – combining Guinness, honey, mustard, Irish butter, and cream cheese – to coat a piece of Norwegian salmon, which is then topped with panko breadcrumbs.
“Once the product hit my mouth, I knew it was a winner,” Lavault said. “Thankfully, the judges agreed with me.”
In 2025, 68 products were entered into the Seafood Expo North America New Product Showcase, which highlights new products, condiments, and dishes launched within the last year. Of those, 11 were selected as finalists based on uniqueness, market fit, taste profile, market potential, convenience, nutritional value, and originality.
Judging of the finalists took place at Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America at Boston’s Thomas M. Menino Convention and Exhibition Center on 16 March, 2025. The judges included Stop and Shop Vice President Paul Chapman, C&S Wholesale Grocers Procurement Supervisor Kimberly Price, and The Cheesecake Factory Senior Procurement Category Manager Josue Avila.
After winning the Best New Retail Product Award, Icy Waters Co-Founder Padraig Murphy said the company has had over 60 different meetings with some of the biggest retailers in the U.S., eventually landing accounts at Harris Teeter and Stop and Shop.
“Entering into a contest has a lot of excitement, and winning has helped us tremendously with moving forward and getting the meetings and people’s interest and excitement to see the product and taste the product,” Murphy said.
In addition to its Guinness sweet honey mustard salmon, Icy Waters has a whole product line focused on the Guinness flavor profile. The line includes haddock with Guinness savory butter cream and salmon marinated in a Guinness barbecue sauce, available in both retail and foodservice.
Icy Waters also collaborated with Sean’s Irish Whiskey to create a product line with three different flavor profiles and a shrimp bake.
“The concept for the business was always to come out with creative items that other people aren’t doing or are afraid to do,” Murphy told SeafoodSource in a recent interview. “We wanted to set ourselves apart and be unique with the products that we offer and stay true to the quality and consistency.”
Starting in Q1 2026, Murphy said Harris Teeter and Stop and Shop will roll out Icy Waters’ full Guinness product line.
This year, Icy Waters is hoping to impress the Seafood Excellence Award judges again with another new product – Haddock with Everything Seasoning and a Coconut Margarita Flavored Sauce Pack.
“It’s a two-step process; we’re seasoning the fish, and then we’re adding the sauce pack separate,” Murphy said. “It’s a much better finished product than marinating the product in the sauce and sealing it.”
According to Murphy, this process creates a better texture and keeps the flavor of the sauce consistent.
“Hopefully, we can come back this year and have the same results and keep the momentum going,” Murphy said. “We’re a young company. We got really great people involved in the business, so we’re excited about our future.”
