Raw Seafoods City Pier brand aims to shake up value-added seafood category

Raw Seafoods is capitalizing on growing consumer demand for ready-to-eat options by rolling out a new brand of products that executives believe will elevate and shake up the industry.

The Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based seafood manufacturer and distributor’s new City Pier specialty line features high-quality, frozen, ready-to-cook entrees such as grilled shrimp, hot Italian and sweet Italian wild salmon meatballs, North Atlantic wild-caught sea scallops, and a wide variety of frozen seafood appetizers, sauces, and fish portions.

Raw Seafoods chose these specific seafood options for City Pier after “a significant amount of research within the seafood category determining approachable flavor-forward products that would receive easy adoption by consumers,” Raw Seafoods Vice President of Marketing Gary Marcotte Jr. told SeafoodSource.

“We saw the absolute need to excite and wake up the seafood category at retail,” Marcotte Jr. said. “For years, it has seemed that the retail category was asleep … We are looking to elevate [both] category and consumer expectations.”

Consumer demand for easy-to-cook yet still high-quality food has increased exponentially since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Marcotte Jr. said.

“The pandemic somewhat forced consumers to discover what culinary creativity they were capable of,” he said. “They proved that they could do it themselves and have a restaurant-like, gourmet-like meal experience with themselves and family, and consumers were proud of it.”

In response to that demand, retailers have been eager to place the brand on their shelves, Marcotte Jr. said. The new line, available at The Fresh Market, Whole Foods, Hannaford, Big Y, Costco, and other major retailers, will also launch in Target, Shaws, and other national and regional grocery chains this fall.

“It’s a great time to partner on the retail launch of City Pier specialty seafood as our guests have been seeking out more retail-ready seafood items lately,” The Fresh Market Seafood Category Manager Mahir Zelihic told SeafoodSource.

In addition to its innovative flavors, the brand remains heavily focused on ...

Photo courtesy of Raw Seafoods