Devi Seafoods, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Devi Seafoods Limited, India, has been named by North American broadline distributor Sysco Corporation as its top seafood supplier for 2018.
Each year, Sysco honors its suppliers who have gone above and beyond company standards and expectations with Sysco Supplier Excellence Awards. Award recipients are selected from over 1,300 eligible, Sysco-affiliated businesses, and are evaluated based on sales growth and support, operational excellence, and other key business performance metrics laid out by Sysco's merchandising, quality assurance, and supply chain departments. Winners are broken out by industry, and are ranked as either Gold, Silver or Bronze.
Houston, Texas-based Devi Seafoods received the highest recognition — a Gold Supplier Award — in the seafood category for 2018, marking the fourth time that the supplier has been named by Sysco as an exemplary business partner. Last year, the company, which is the largest exporter of farmed shrimp from India to the United States, took home the Silver Award in the seafood category; in 2016, it was recognized as a Gold Supplier Award recipient; and in 2014, it was the first seafood business to receive Sysco’s “Supplier of the Year” distinction.
Meanwhile, Georgia’s King & Prince Seafood was the seafood category’s Silver Supplier Award recipient for 2018, a shift up from its Bronze-level vendor recognition back in 2017.
Several other seafood operations achieved Sysco’s Bronze-level status this year, including Ore-Cal Corporation / Harvest Of The Sea, Eastern Fisheries,Inc., Tampa Maid Foods, LLC, Shediac Lobster Shop, and Great American Seafood Imports Company.
A specialty award, Bronze Supplies on the Fly, was given to Honolulu Fish Company, which offers more than 30 varieties of eco-friendly Pacific water fish to over 3,000 customers, including top chefs in search of sashimi-grade fish.
New Orleans, Louisiana-based Paul Piazza & Son Inc., which received the Gold Supplier Award from Sysco in 2017, was not listed among the winners for this year.
Sysco, which recently acquired U.K.-based distributor Kent Frozen Foods in March and took control of Costa Rican food distributor Mayca Distribuidores in November 2017, gave General Mills Foodservice its top prize, Supplier of the Year. Broker of the Year was awarded to the CORE Group.
