Rancho Dominguez, California, U.S.A.-based Santa Monica Seafood has bought out the equity interest in a joint venture controlling Ethos Seafood Group, a manufacturer of pre-packaged, chilled seafood products sold at retail outlets across the country.
Ethos Seafood was founded in 2012 as a joint venture between Santa Monica Seafood and Blue Earth Group, a privately-owned investment and management company. Ethos Seafood is now 100-percent owned by Santa Monica Seafood and will be considered a division of the company moving forward, according to Santa Monica Seafood President and CEO Roger O’Brien. The Ethos Seafood name will be phased out as the group becomes Santa Monica Seafood’s Value-Added Products Division, which will be known as the SMS-VAP Division for short, O’Brien said.
“With this transaction now complete, all of our divisions and operations are now fully owned,” O’Brien said in a press release. “Since Santa Monica Seafood has historically provided all operational and administrative support for Ethos Seafood, this transaction should have no noticeable effect on daily activity and operations.”
Ethos Seafood specializes in the development and distribution of value-added seafood products with rubs, sauces, and butters that are ready to heat and eat, according to the company. Its distribution currently stretches across 21 states via packaging facilities in the Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California metropolitan areas, though a doubling of the size of its Chicago facility to 47,000 square feet, including the addition of more packaging lines and freezer space, will give the company room to grow. O’Brien said Ethos’ footprint in Santa Monica’s 120,000-square-foot plant in the Los Angeles area will also be expanded in 2021.
“We are increasing our capacity in both Chicago and Los Angeles to handle the rapid growth our SMS-VAP Division has been experiencing in both geographic areas,” he said.
In May 2020, Ethos Seafood announced it would upgrade its vacuum skin-pack films into a recyclable format for its base packaging trays, technology that developed through a partnership between Ethos Seafood and MULTIVAC.
Santa Monica Seafood Board Chairman and Executive Vice President Michael Cigliano has been named president of the SMS-VAP Division, according to the press release.
