Rancho Dominguez, California, U.S.A.-based seafood distributor, processor, and wholesaler Santa Monica Seafood experienced a tough first half of 2025.
In January, Santa Monica Seafood was impacted by wildfires in Southern California, which led to at least 100 retail and foodservice customers closing their doors – some temporarily and some permanently.
Then, in February, Santa Monica Seafood closed its restaurant and fish market in Costa Mesa, California, due to a challenging operational environment for restaurants in the U.S.
Additionally, U.S. tariffs introduced throughout this year have forced businesses across the seafood industry to readjust their strategies.
Despite the challenges, CEO Roger O’Brien told SeafoodSource he is cautiously optimistic about the company, which he said may pursue acquisitions in the near future, and the seafood industry as a whole.
SeafoodSource: How do you expect tariffs on imports to impact the U.S. economy and the seafood industry?
O’Brien: I try not to fret over something I can’t control. Despite the challenging impact on Santa Monica Seafood’s business, tariffs will impact all seafood distributors equally. A seafood company’s niche in the industry – whether as a producer, importer, broker, processor, distributor, or retailer – will determine how strong the impact will be, and that impact will then get better or worse depending on which products you handle, how you source your products, which countries you obtain those products from, and the cooperation you receive from specific suppliers.
Every year brings different challenges, and for this year and next, tariffs have and will continue to dominate as the top media story, the top concern, the top focus, and the top obstacle to achieving success. My belief is the tariff situation will be second in difficulty only to the [Covid-19] pandemic we all went through starting back in 2020.
The tariff impact will come down to how consumers react to price increases, possible supply shortages, increased inflation news, higher grocery bills, higher restaurant bills, and any impact on their jobs. Thus far in 2025, the consumer has shown tremendous resilience. That said, the economy and the labor market have improved significantly over the prior few years, and despite many people having predicted death and gloom for many facets of the U.S. economy, none of that has materialized.
SeafoodSource: How do you expect tariffs to impact Santa Monica Seafood’s business in particular, and which tariffs are you most concerned about?
O’Brien: Santa Monica was strongly impacted by the pandemic, but we survived and came out of it as a much stronger company. I don’t see the tariff challenge much differently. We have our concerns about the second half of 2025 due to all the heavy tariffs, but who doesn’t?
You can imagine which countries we have the most concern about relative to tariffs – India, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Brazil, Vietnam, Ecuador, and the European Union. It is going to come down to open and honest dialogue with our suppliers and our customers, working on how to share in the cost of these tariffs to keep consumers buying seafood products.
Making this matter more difficult will be projecting demand, not knowing how consumers may back off from certain products due to price increases. We intend to tighten our belts, reduce costs where possible, get creative with our suppliers, and stay positive. When life throws you lemons, you make lemonade. I see lots of lemonade going forward.
SeafoodSource: Has Santa Monica been holding off on acquiring companies due to the economic uncertainty over tariffs?
O’Brien: It’s been very quiet with many deals that had been expected having been apparently pulled off the market, primarily until the tariff issues subside and everyone better determines the impact on the industry, their company, retailers, foodservice groups, and the consumer.
That said, we’re still monitoring a few opportunities such that once we understand changes to the business world after the tariff issues settle, we plan – or I should say hope – to reengage with merger and acquisition opportunities. We would still love to complete an acquisition this year, but we’re realistic in anticipating it will more likely be the first half of 2026.
SeafoodSource: How is Santa Monica performing, particularly following the California wildfires?
O’Brien: The Los Angeles wildfires and related restaurant closures in Q1 hurt, and there are lingering effects from them.
Sales for the first half of 2025 were flat with last year, despite volumes being down slightly, and we are happy with that. We converted all our systems to a new software platform in March, and that has been a major distraction for us. We are very pleased with the results of that effort.
SeafoodSource: Is Santa Monica focusing more on retail or foodservice business?
O’Brien: We are equally focused on our skin-pack business and our foodservice business – both wholesale and contract – with more support and more resources currently being provided this year to the latter.
We now have 36 sales reps supporting foodservice, and a big focus for 2025 has been on growing our Colorado operations, which is currently all foodservice. We commenced operations in May 2024 in our Denver, Colorado, facility, and it has shown tremendous sales growth this year.
