This year marks 75 years in business for Saint Simons Island, Georgia, U.S.A.-based seafood supplier SeaPak Shrimp and Seafood, and to celebrate three-quarters of a century in business, the company has released new packaging and a revamped logo.
“We are incredibly proud of the legacy that the SeaPak brand has built over the past 75 years,” said Ciera Womack, the director of marketing and seafood for the consumer brands division of SeaPak’s parent company Rich Products. “This brand is well-respected in the seafood industry and has helped pioneer several initiatives over the years.”
What is now a major frozen shrimp manufacturing operation started modestly as the Sea Island Packing Company on a former naval training base off the coast of Georgia.
Within a year, the company began to employ individual quick freezing – a process that allowed it to “flash freeze” each batch of locally caught shrimp – in its production, preserving its product’s freshness for a much longer period of time than once thought possible.
“It’s a process that has become industry standard to this day,” SeaPak said in a press release.
A few years later, the company changed its name to the SeaPak Corporation and launched peeled, deveined, quick-frozen shrimp products that it marketed throughout the Southeast U.S.
SeaPak then branched into other products like breaded shrimp and fish sticks after realizing success and began utilizing airplane transportation to deliver its frozen offerings to grocery stores across the country.
“SeaPak’s founding mission was to make seafood accessible to all, which it continues to proudly uphold today,” the company stated.
Buffalo, New York, U.S.A.-based Rich Products acquired SeaPak Shrimp and Seafood in 1976 and has helped it grow into one of the top-selling U.S. retail shrimp brands in the frozen specialty seafood category.
“Rich’s, as a family-owned company, knows the [importance of] holding true to the values instilled in our brands by never straying from our quality and food safety standards, bringing our consumers delicious and convenient-to-prepare seafood at home,” Womack said.
Further boosting its presence in the value-added seafood market, Rich Products acquired Morey’s Seafood International in 2020. Morey’s, which processes and distributes a full line of fresh and frozen value-added seafood products, expanded to a 65,000-square-foot facility in the spring of 2019 to meet growing demand. It sold Morey’s distribution business in December 2022 in order to focus on its consumer products division.
Rich’s aims to be a responsible leader through its commitment to responsible seafood sourcing and sustainability. SeaPak has partnered with nonprofits, such as the Ghost Gear Initiative, and hosts regular coastal cleanups to promote and maintain clean oceans, beaches, and waterways.
Though its business has expanded greatly, SeaPak’s recent rebranding hearkens back to its time as a small packaging company, emphasizing that while the scale of operations has dramatically changed, its values haven’t, Womack said.
“[SeaPak’s logo has been] adjusted slightly to bring a more modern feel, without losing the equitable founding year of 1948 that we know our consumers place value in,” Womack said. “In designing our new logo, one thing we knew we wanted to keep was the iconic lighthouse image. It’s our way of shining a light on our mission of being a responsible leader in the industry by providing superior quality and taste.”
The company’s updated packaging, similarly to its new logo, is “an evolution of the classic image that SeaPak customers know and love,” according to Womack. “The current SeaPak packaging has been on [the] shelf since 2017, and with our evolving consumer base, we knew it was time to bring an exciting, refreshed look.”
Before rolling out its new design, SeaPak shared packaging concepts with both current consumers and those who didn’t know about SeaPak’s products, Womack said.
“We made a data-informed decision on how to refresh our look and feel,” Womack said. “We know that this will be well-received at [retailers] based on specific feedback and data gathered prior to making our final decisions.”
The new packaging will hit retail shelves in Q4 2023. In addition to the new logo and packaging, SeaPak is promoting its anniversary with a social media contest giving away a year of free SeaPak products to one winner.
“Celebrating 75 years is a perfect opportunity for us to say thank you to our incredible associates, customers, and industry partners who have supported SeaPak and helped build it into the trusted and beloved brand it is today,” Womack said.
Photo courtesy of SeaPak Shrimp and Seafood
