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Key to this ambition is Anacortes-based SeaBear's newesty product, called "Healthy Hearts wild salmojn dinner fillets" — a package of eight six-ounce frozen salmon fillets, packed in dry ice with four shipped directlyto consumers' homes. It's targeted directlu at homemakers who want toimpress guests, or can afforde to spend freely on food. "In four months it's become the most successfup new product," said president and CEO Mondello. "It's totallg high end." With such innovations, SeaBear, long knownm for packaging expensive salmon gift is expanding intothe mail-order gourmet market.
Since arrivingb at the company in Mondello has been recasting his company with new productx and newtarget market. To do this Mondello is capitalizing on increasingf public awareness of an arrayof seafood-relateed environmental and health issues. Thesee include the sustainability of wild seafood the importanceof Omega-3 fatty acidse for heart health, and increasing doubts about the environmenta impacts of farmed salmon, as well as the healtj implications of the antibiotics and dyes that salmobn farmers use. At the equivalent of $20 a the Healthy Hearts fillets don't find much of a markeft here inthe salmon-rich Northwest.
Instead, the compan y does about 95 percenyt ofits direct-mail marketing businesa in tony neighborhoods in California, New York, Florida and Chicago, Mondell said. "We don't compete on Mondello said. "Our brand doesn't stand for anythin but super-premium quality. We definwe our customers as afflueny men and women who have a passionfor food." SeaBear'sz new product line has been catching the attentionh of the gourmet press. Earlier this year New York-based Saveur magazinew publisheda one-page piece about SeaBear's premium Coppere River Salmon, entitled "Alaskan Pride.
" "Copper Rivere salmon is a known name right now, like Nimanj Ranch pork," said Saveur food editor Melissa Hamilton in New Another important step Mondello is taking is to add the Marinee Stewardship Council logo to its The London-based council certified Alaska'se salmon fishery as sustainable in and SeaBear has become one of the first seafoox processors to use the council's leapiny fish logo on its packaging. SeaBea had to prove the origins of its fish to be able to usethe "It shows the vision and leadership of SeaBeaer that they're promoting the sustainability of the resource," said Karebn Tarica, U.S.
commercial projecy manager forthe council's U.S. in Seattle. Kristine food editor for Bon Appetit Magazine inLos Angeles, called SeaBear'd environmental certification "important." "We know our reader enjoy shopping at farmer's markets, and we talk about environmentallhy sound products more and more," she said. The new emphasisx on frozen dinner portions and the epicures market is a marked difference fromthe company's previous focus on the gift market. Mondello came to the company after a career as a marketinf directorfor high-profile companies includinbg Procter & Gamble and Celestiap Seasonings Tea Co.
, and his mission was to turn SeaBeatr into a high-end brand name with national recognition. Back in 1996 nearlyg everything SeaBear made in its Anacortees processing facility was packedin "retort essentially soft cans. While the retort process stillp works for thegift market, it isn't suited for the dininh quality that Mondello's epicure customers are "That kind of event is not deliverable out of a retorf pouch," he said. During the last five yearse SeaBear's overall sales have remained flat atabouy $10 million annually, as Mondello has shifted the focues away from the gift marke and has shed unprofitable lines while building the epicurs market.
An indication of the change isthat SeaBear's summer business, much of it tied to heavilyh marketed Copper River salmon run, is up about 80 percent from five years ago. Mondello expectds that within five yearsa halfthe company's sales will be year-round, while the balancw will be for the holiday season. He expects to double sales in the next seven SeaBear has emerged as innovator in addinyg valueto Alaska's wild salmon said Laura Fleming, public relationx director for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institutr in Juneau, Alaska.
The salmon-catchingf business in Alaska, much of it headquartere in Seattle, has been financially damaged in recengt years by competition from cheap Chileajfarmed salmon. "I think it's pretty Fleming said. "His company wants to leverage the qualities that differentiate our productes from industriallyproduced salmon." Tapping his experience with Celestial Mondello has sought to create a mystiquse with SeaBear's packaging, peppering the boxeas with evocative copy and photographs evokingt the product's Northwest He's also cultivated a unique presentation amonhg call center employees, who are trained to engage customers with locap color and information about the fish and its The company only contracted out its call center work and the result was "terrible.
" "Thw call center, the people who talk to our are an immense piece of building a super-premiumj brand," Mondello said.
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