Scott and Jon Demers spent four years developing their Maine-based frozen seafood company, Cheating Gourmet, into a national brand. Their success is evident in their distribution footprint, which has grown from 700 stores to 3,000 in the past year. The company, based in Auburn, Maine, makes a line of frozen appetizers using scallops, lobster and crab.
SeafoodSource: Talk a bit about the intersection of the seafood business in Maine and gourmet value-added products and how you’ve leveraged that to create a niche business.
Scott Demers: Seafood has always been an important part of Maine culture and the bar is set high for the quality and authenticity of seafood coming from Maine. Therefore, our focus is on being true to Maine values by offering products that are 100 percent real seafood, with no use of surimi or imitation seafood. People associate Maine with amazing seafood, so we benefit from the “Maine” brand, which means we need to meet those high expectations. Delivering quality and being a dependable vendor is at the core of our company.
SeafoodSource: What do you consider to be your biggest business challenge thus far, how did you address it, and what did you learn from that experience?
Jon Demers: Our biggest challenge was to gain distribution and shelf space at stores around the country. You really need to stand out if you are trying to break into the category and replace another brand on the shelf. Our solution was to bring innovative appetizer products to the category that offer something unique and that have a strong focus on quality.
SeafoodSource: How has your business strategy evolved since you began business?
Scott Demers: More than ever, our focus is on growing the whole frozen seafood category. We want people to think of convenient prepared seafood meals and appetizers as something healthy and delicious that they can enjoy 52 weeks throughout the year, not just as a special occasion. We also have taken note of the rise of the millennials and their core values – healthy, easy to prepare for on-the-go busy lifestyles, high quality real seafood and sustainably caught seafood – making sure our brand is catering to those interests. We want to help steer more people to the frozen prepared meal aisle of their store.
SeafoodSource: What difference do you want to make (or have you made) personally in your company or the industry?
Jon Demers: We aim to make high-quality seafood more accessible to people around the country and our recent expansion to more than 3,000 grocery stores gets us closer to that goal. We hope that our use of real seafood ingredients will inspire customers and other brands so that people expect, and can find, convenient, quality products when they shop in the frozen aisle.
SeafoodSource: Given the opportunity to address a room filled with other seafood industry executives, what five dos and don’ts for achieving business success would you like to share with them?
Scott Demers: We try not to focus on the don’ts. Some of our dos include: Build a strong team, push the envelope on innovation, sell quality products that you believe in, and set a high standard and then live up to it.
