New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based East Coast Seafood and Saint John’s, Newfoundland, Canada-based Whitecap International Seafood have formed a marketing partnership with the goal of developing innovative products for sale in North America.
The alliance grew out of a complementary overlap of the companies’ priorities and a shared desire to expand their value-added seafood offerings, according to East Coast Seafood CEO Bob Blais. Whitecap is a major supplier of Canadian cold-water shellfish including shrimp, snow crab, and lobster; and East Coast has upped its production of retail products following a company reorganization, the expansion of its Salt & Sky retail line, and the opening of its 66,000-square-foot lobster- and scallop-processing facility in New Bedford. All of the species Whitecap supplies are used in East Coast Seafood’s line of Make-Your-Own Roll Kits and, through the co-marketing agreement, the two companies will pursue further utilization of Whitecap’s products in East Coast’s value-added lineup.
“This developed fully when Whitecap said they liked our lobster roll kits and asked us to do something with their cold-water shrimp. Once we did that, they said, ‘Wow, this is great. What about the snow crab?’ We did that one. We then started just bouncing ideas back and forth, and once that collaboration got going, we started looking at our distribution channels and saw they didn’t have a lot of overlap,” East Coast Seafood CEO Bob Blais told SeafoodSource. “We also have different distribution channels, and that's what becomes important on the marketing side. Our focus has been on the big box stores and traditional retailers and they want to get these items into club stores.”
The current lineup of co-marketed products includes Snow Crab Cakes, Seafood Pan Roast, Shrimp Lo Mein, Shrimp Rolls, Snow Crab Rolls, Lobster Mac and Cheese, Snow Crab Mac and Cheese, Lobster Risotto Bites, Snow Crab Stuffed Sole, and a SeaCuterie Board.
"Seafood can be intimidating for consumers to prepare at home and we’ve removed all the guesswork. Our innovative products are designed to provide healthy and delicious seafood choices, making them easy for the consumer to prepare at home," Blais, who was appointed in 2021, said. “We’re responding to consumer demand for increased seafood choices, with newly inspired flavor profiles and cuisines. Our alliance with Whitecap has helped us to speed and exceed expectations on new product rollouts and remains transformative in our evolution for species and product diversification."
The Snow Crab Hot Pot, which was a Seafood Excellence Awards finalist, is the star of the lineup, according to East Coast Marketing and Product Development Director Christine Ferranti-Clift. The product contains lo mein noodles, bok choy, carrots, and shiitake mushrooms, and can be prepared with boil-in-bag technology or in the microwave. After gauging its success in the market, the partnership is considering expanding the line to offer shrimp and lobster alternatives.
“It's healthy, it's wholesome, and lo mein is probably one of the biggest takeout items across the U.S.,” she said. “Asian flavors are on trend right now, but this isn't going out of style.”
East Coast Vice President of Sales and Marketing Steve Musser said the enhanced product-creation process for the line has been grueling but has resulted in better end-products.
“We have spent a lot of time and energy to get these right. We try a lot of different versions and when we finally feel that we've gotten it where it needs to be, then we take it to the buying community. And they typically will give us little tweaks, like adding a couple more shrimp or removing some of the noodles,” he said. “We're not trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. We’re not telling people this is what we’re selling and you’ve got to buy it this way. We have the ability to get feedback and we love that interaction. We want each of our products to grab consumers get them to continue to look for and try all our products.”
Ferranti-Clift said the company is also able to work quickly if necessary – he cited the example of getting Lobster Risotto Bites to Costco on a six-week timeline in order to have them available for the Super Bowl this year.
“Your innovation wheel can't be six months anymore. We have to get faster and we have been getting faster, without any loss of quality. A lot of blood ,sweat, and tears across the company goes into that, but it's working,” Ferranti-Clift said. “Steve goes in to see customers now and they’re asking him, ‘What are your five new items?’ You can’t just have one or two products and if they don’t work out, the meeting is over.”
A number of Costco regions are moving to a 10-week rotational offering, and the East Coast team is already preparing its next round of steam-bag products for them, which will likely include shrimp lo mein, shrimp scampi, and shrimp alfredo, according to Musser.
Blais said the company’s focus will continue to be on selling lobster and scallops, but with Salt & Sky’s success with previous products, such as its Shrimp and Mussel Paella, Shrimp and Rice Noodles, Scallop Gnocchi, Lobster Mac and Cheese Bites, and Shrimp and Rice Noodles Steam Bags, he said his firm is “definitely getting the returns now that we've been looking for” from its value-added products.
“The success of our lobster roll product going forward will depend on what happens with the markets and we understand. The cold-water shrimp has very stable pricing so that's where we’ll move forward with confidence. And then on the snow crab, we are getting in post-bust, but we're coming into a new season and we feel pretty confident snow crab is going to be priced attractively compared to last year,” Blais said. “With [wild-catch fisheries], you can’t predict the future for everything, but at least in the short term, from ’23 to ’24, we're in pretty good shape.”
Musser said the aim with the new products is to keep them within the USD 13.99 to USD 16.99 (EUR 12.77 to EUR 15.51), range.
“We’re very conscious, other than the lobster roll, the value to the buyer had to be there. So USD 10.00 [EUR 9.13] at Costco for a lobster roll, that's a slam dunk. This is three-and-a-half ounces of meat at lobster-shack quality,” he said. “We're very conscious of what we can put in a product because we know at some point in time that if we approach USD 20.00 [EUR 18.26], it's game over.”
Blais said the partnership with Whitecap has been critical to the ambitions of East Coast’s product expansion.
“It has been two years, and we have talked every week, and sometimes multiple times a week, for two years. That develops trust,” he said.”
The partnership has no formal financial tie to it, but rather creates “an incubator of existing go-to-market strategies” to “pioneer unique and transformative seafood programs on a global scale,” according to a formal company press release.
Whitecap International Seafoods Senior Vice President Darrell Roche told SeafoodSource his company’s focus was on having products that used its seafood – and especially its high-end items – which consumers could prepare easily in three to five minutes. He’s especially excited about the cold-water shrimp roll that he hopes will boost U.S. consumption of a local shrimp “that has a lot more flavor than a lot of the other products out there.”
“We’re very excited – they all taste really good, they’re all sustainable, and they’re all produced in factories with globe-leading standards, certified to BRC,” Roche said. “Our retailers were saying, ‘What’s next?’
Splitting the retail coverage is another benefit of the partnership, according to Roche.
"We could not be more thrilled with our relationship with East Coast and the ability to proactively champion new products benefiting all aspects of the supply chain," Roche said. "We share the same passion for people first and that philosophy translates to transparency and respect throughout the entire business chain. The soul of our business is our people and our partners, and we’re immensely proud of our work together. We believe we've created something extraordinary in these new seafood products with East Coast and can't wait for the world to enjoy them."
Photo courtesy of Cliff White/SeafoodSource
