New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Northern Wind has launched a global scallop import program.
The new program comes after Northern Wind acquired Atlantic Capes in December 2024, a move that Northern Wind CEO Ken Melanson told SeafoodSource is related to the diminishing availability of U.S. scallops.
“There’s only a handful of people who basically deal with 80 percent of the total quota here domestically in the scallop business. With the diminishing quotas and everything else, it just made all the sense in the world – rather than go out there and fight for customers,” Melanson told SeafoodSource in January.
A little over six months later, the company is using the combined purchasing power of Northern Wind and Atlantic Capes to capture a larger share of both the domestic quota and imported scallops.
On the domestic front, Melanson said the combined sourcing of both Northern Wind and Atlantic Capes has the company currently handling between 46 percent and 47 percent of the entire quota for scallops in the U.S. Northeast, which this year sits at projected landings of 19.75 million pounds.
“If there’s 20 million pounds being caught, we have access to almost 10 million of them,” Melanson said.
On the imported side, the combination of the two companies has also allowed for greater access to scallops thanks to the increased buying power of the larger company.
“Northern Wind would bring in 40 to 50 containers a year, and Atlantic Capes would basically do the same. Now, because of our size, we expect to do 2.5 times that volume,” Melanson said.
He added that the acquisition of Atlantic Capes was a benefit in a number of ways, especially thanks to the differing customer base of the two companies.
“Atlantic Capes and Northern Wind didn’t have a lot of overlap with customers,” Melanson said. “We sold to some of the same customers, but there was a substantial amount who were on our side of the fence and didn’t overlap with what they brought over on their side of the fence, which made the acquisition very interesting.”
That lack of overlap both expanded the customer base of the combined company and also helped keep some of those customers on board, as typically a customer would want to purchase from more than one source.
“You’re not overlapping and saying, ‘This customer is probably going to go look for another supplier because they had two – one Atlantic Capes and one Northern Wind,’” Melanson said. “That’s typically what they do. But, we’ve had fewer than half a dozen customers of any big size that overlap.”
On the importation side, the vendors each company used also tended to be completely different. Northern Wind and Atlantic Capes have both worked with some of its vendors for over 30 years, and once again there was very little overlap.
“It puts us in a very good position when it comes to customer base and vendor base,” Melanson said.
As the company expands its scallop program, it is also having to deal with the reality of increased trade barriers and tariffs. Melanson said scallop sourcing is limited to the countries that have a supply, with the company currently acquiring scallops from locations like Japan, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, and China – all of which are facing various levels of higher tariff rates.
While the company has diversified its sourcing, there’s little that can be done to stave off the impact of higher tariffs.
“There’s only so many places you can get them from in the first place,” Melanson said. “If you’ve got a 20, 25, or 30 percent tariff, it is what it is. You might be able to buy a little cheaper, but at the end of the day, when you’re adding 20 percent or 30 percent to what you’re paying already, it’s not going to work.”
Melanson said he’s hopeful scallops will maintain demand through the trade disruptions.
“Hopefully, we don’t get priced so high that people start lifting them off the menus,” Melanson said. “It all comes down to the customers. Are they going to reach into their pocket and buy hamburgers and hot dogs, or are they going to buy scallops and lobster tails?”
