Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.-based seafood distributor Seattle Fish Co. lost roughly half its revenue at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic a year ago.
“We went into the pandemic servicing 50 percent retail and 50 percent foodservice customers,” Seattle Fish President and CEO Derek Figueroa told SeafoodSource.
Seattle Fish immediately clamped down on expenses, shifted distribution, put projects on hold and “really put ourselves in a place to navigate some of the uncertainty,” Figueroa said.
“We knew we would make it through in some form, but our immediate concern was our restaurant partners,” Figueroa said. However, he acknowledged that the company faced several issues of its own such as accounts receivable from customers “who wanted to pay, but couldn’t,” and from excess fresh inventory.
Next, the distributor ramped up processing seafood and seafood meals at its manufacturing facility to better service its grocery store customers, which include King Soopers.
“The pandemic brought urgency to take some of the risks we were willing to take before,” Figueroa said. “We had done a little bit of manufacturing inside our plant and we increased that to make commissary products – meals to go – for retail customers.”
Seattle Fish now provides a range of private-label prepared seafood options for grocery stores, such as fajita meal kits with mahi or shrimp and vegetables, fish burgers, and seasoned fish with compound butter.
“It helps take the labor time away from them,” Figueroa said.
The distributor is also helping its retail customers boost their e-commerce offerings, such as seafood and meals in clear tray packs to they can clearly see the item when ordering online.
Thanks to Seattle Fish’s expanded retail offerings, its retail sales are 40 percent higher now than in 2019, while foodservice sales are around 70 percent of what they were in 2019, according to Figueroa.
Photo courtesy of Seattle Fish Co.
