Hand-picked lobster meat, lobster cakes, lobster crostini, lobster mac and cheese, lobster dip, lobster toast, and stuffed lobster tail all signal one thing: Phillips is all in on lobster.
These products, some of which Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.-based Phillips Foods already offers, some of which are on the way, and some of which have only gone through initial ideation stages, are the result of the company's recent move into the lobster industry.
Just over one year after Phillips purchased plants in Bloomfield, Prince Edward Island, Canada, and Bas-Caraquet, New Brunswick, Canada, to process lobster and crab, the company has announced a slew of lobster products intended for foodservice and retail partners, including its Signature Lobster Cakes, which won a 2024 Seafood Excellence Global Award in the convenience category.
“Lobster, similar to crab, drives our business, and being vertically integrated in our manufacturing, we can create value-added items that fall into line with what we already offer,” Phillips Vice President of Retail, Club Sales, and Marketing John Baxter told SeafoodSource at the 2025 Seafood Expo North America.
Baxter explained that the firm has bet big on lobster for several reasons, one of which is that it has more market recognition nationwide than some of its crab products – Phillips’ traditional offering and its best seller.
“If you can have a premium product and add it into your portfolio, you take it,” Baxter said. “Lobster is a more recognizable protein as an ingredient to the whole country than … crab is along the Mid-Atlantic and East Coast. By adding a protein in a value-added form with that recognition, it can really work.”
Continuing the momentum of its processing plant purchases, as well as its shift away from operating restaurants toward almost exclusively manufacturing foodservice and retail products, Phillips is introducing a skinpack machine into its Baltimore processing facility to widen the products it can offer, giving it the ability to produce stuffed products, two-pack lobster tails, and single-serve meals, among other novel products.
“It gives us a lot of flexibility, creativity, and innovation that our corporate chef and foodservice team can take advantage of. We’re vertical not only in terms of production but also in terms of research and development,” Baxter said.
Phillips’ international infrastructure, which includes factories in the U.S., Canada, and Southeast Asia, also make it particularly prepared to weather obstacles such as U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods, which have put the North American lobster on notice.
“There are some smaller companies that might not have the fiscal wherewithal to handle some challenges. For us, whether the challenges are climate or tariffs, you just kind of roll with it. It’s not just us dealing with it, it’s everybody,” Baxter said.
In addition to new lobster products, Phillips also rolled out three flavors of empanadas that were at the 2025 SENA New Product Showcase: crab and sweet corn, shrimp and spicy chili, and seafood and zesty lime.
