The coronavirus pandemic, which spread quickly around the globe during the first quarter of 2020, has caused a seismic shift in U.S. seafood market trends.
Luke’s Lobster, which has dual headquarters in New York City and Maine, U.S.A., has depended on unity and support throughout its vertically-integrated business – and beyond it – to navigate the choppy waters of the pandemic, according to Ben Conniff, the group's co-founder and chief marketing officer.
Founded just over 10 years ago, Luke’s Lobster is a restaurant group, a seafood buyer, a processor, and a CPG brand all rolled into one. The company buys seafood directly from fishermen, and handles it “all the way through the process until it gets to the consumer,” Conniff said. Like many other seafood suppliers in the country, Luke’s has had to pivot quickly to stay afloat, as it was forced to close its restaurants due to state-by-state lockdowns.
“COVID-19 initially slowed business and then completely shuttered our restaurants, then our production facility, and it has left us in a place of great uncertainty,” Conniff said.
Watching the U.S. foodservice sector contract significantly has been a startling experience for the seafood industry, Luke’s included, according to Conniff.
“When restaurants go away, that reverberates back up to the folks who work in the processing plant, to the truckers who move seafood around, to all the other services that touched the seafood industry, and to the coastal communities that depend on that income,” he said. “The effects are really staggering."
Increased retail sales of seafood have offered a bit of hope to the industry amid a difficult climate. Frozen seafood sales at U.S. grocery stores have increased by double digits since mid-March, soaring 37.7 percent to nearly USD 1.4 billion (EUR 1.3 billion) for the week ending on 2 May, according to Nielsen data provided to SeafoodSource. Canned seafood sales have also jumped during the coronavirus pandemic, increasing by 10 percent to nearly USD 5.1 billion (EUR 4.7 billion) for the week ending on 7 March, compared to the same week in 2019, Nielsen noted in an earlier report.
Considering such shifts in purchasing habits, Conniff said the time is now – if seafood providers are able – to set the record straight with consumers about some of their off-base assumptions regarding these two key seafood categories.
“We’ve learned that consumers are stocking up on canned foods, predominantly tuna, while staying at home and that overall frozen and fresh seafood sales are up in the last few weeks,” he said. “I think that’s really an important thing to point out, and it’s also a good opportunity to correct some longstanding thoughts about frozen and canned seafood.”
The times and technologies have changed drastically over the years, Conniff said, enhancing the frozen format in a multitude of ways.
“To be fair, you know, peoples’ impressions of frozen seafood ... were probably accurate, because freezing seafood in the old days could really damage it,” he said. “But the technology that we’re now able to use when freezing – we, for example, use a liquid nitrogen tunnel – rapidly freezes and preserves the quality of seafood so incredibly well. And many other producers are using similar technologies. Frozen seafood should not be written off as lesser than compared to fresh seafood. It can be done really well. The same can be said for canned seafood. If there is an inability on anyone’s part to get fresh seafood for any number of reasons, buying properly frozen seafood is a great way to continue to support the seafood industry, until you know your access to fresh is back.”
When the immediate fears, dangers, and pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic have passed in the U.S. and around the world, Conniff noted that things will likely look a lot different for seafood.
“When you look at the restaurant industry, the effects may be very long-lasting in terms of how quickly people are comfortable crowding into a tight, loud environment with lots of other people again,” Conniff said. “So, restaurant volumes could be down for a long time, particularly in the higher end, sit-down restaurants [where] a lot of sustainable seafood goes.”
Conniff fears many foodservice establishments won’t be able to open their doors again.
“Even if guests are willing to come back in volume, a lot of restaurants won’t be there, they’ll already be gone. That’s one of the really crushing things about all of this – you know your favorite restaurants, a good portion of them, aren’t going to come back,” he added.
The outlook isn’t all bad, however, Conniff said.
“A positive that I believe is going to be permanent is that this sense that seafood is this mystical substance that we don’t know how to cook at home and we have to rely on the chef for – that is going to dissipate. Some people, because they’re quarantined at home, because they’re taking risks and experimenting in their kitchens, are going to realize that it’s not impossible to cook seafood well,” Conniff said. “I do think that the positive effects of more home-cooking of seafood are going to be long-lasting.”
Photo courtesy of LADO/Shutterstock
