Our Company
Greg Linton and Andy Drewer started Shore Seafood in 1981 and is a family-owned and operated business located in Virginia. For decades, our company has been farming, harvesting and sourcing quality, sustainable shellfish from the pristine waters of the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic Coastline. The business started as a small mom-and-pop endeavor and operated out of a spare bedroom in its beginning years. Since then, we have grown to become a dependable seafood distributor in the industry offering premium seafood products with the same family-styled service we began with. With generations of experience on the water, we credit our family roots of knowledge with seafood and shellfish for the company's reputation today. We harvest and source fresh clams, oysters, and soft crabs from our waterfront location that are processed, packaged and shipped on refrigerated and reefer trucks to destinations all over the country. We have the capabilities to service high volume wholesalers and foodservice distributors as well as small markets/restaurants with our e-commerce platform, both backed by products and brands the industry has come to know and trust.
Our Story
Start Up
Shore Seafood started in 1981 in the quaint town of Saxis, Virginia. Located on the tip of the Chesapeake Bay, they know they had an opportunity with direct access to soft shell crabs. They began building a customer base, making contact with potential customers on routes into Ocean City, MD and the Philadelphia, PA seafood market. Following a positive reception after presenting fresh soft crabs, the business immediately found itself with multiple wholesale customers in both regions and hired its first packing crew. In the early 80's, while Andy was working to secure an operating facility, Greg worked out of the spare bedroom of his home storing product in chest coolers and freezers. He started leaving his house in the early morning hours making runs into the Philadelphia market as well as deliveries to the company's Ocean City customers. Greg's wife handled the bookkeeping and also helped deliver orders after purchasing their first refrigerated truck.
Growth
In 1985, as the business grew, Shore Seafood was offered a seafood facility to rent and would utilize its new space to process soft crabs during the summer months and clams during the winter. As the business grew, Andy's father, H.V. Drewer, offered the company a large waterfront estate and Shore Seafood purchased the property in the late 90's. Twenty times larger than its predecessor, this new space allowed the company to begin increasing sales even further. The company participated for the first time in the annual Seafood Expo North America trade show, hosted in Boston, MA. This is where the business began promoting its soft shell crabs under the Chesapeake Bay Delights brand which has become a trusted name associated with soft shell crabs ever since. Not only did these shows offer large exposure, but they also promoted strong customer relationships, that still exist today and were instrumental to company's growth and long-term endurance. The company continues to participate in this show every year.
Maturity
A few years later, Greg and Andy met a businessman who owned a marketing company in Japan. The timing was impeccable. This was when the company really took off as the soft shell crab had just been introduced in Japan. Demand for a new product was at an all-time high with a volume the company had never seen before. For the next decade, the business sold container loads of frozen soft shell crabs to Japan and could hardly keep up with the increasing demand. In the early 2000's, however, things overseas, began to change. This is when southeast Asian countries discovered their own soft shell crab; a mud crab. With this new found product, the exportation of soft shell crabs slowed as the mud crab was much more readily available and for a fraction of the price.
Expansion
With the massive market shift of soft shell crabs, the company quickly diversified and began growing and harvesting oysters in the late 2000's. After adding the Grand Pearl oyster product line, the company also began adding more clam products under the Chilantic label such as chopped clams, clam strips, and a concentrated clam juice, in addition to the clams on the half shell already established. With these new product lines, Shore Seafood has now grown to a dedicated staff of 50 employees when operating at maximum capacity during busy summer months. Today, the company continues to grow in the seafood industry and is still led by its original owners more than forty years later.
