The Top 25 Seafood Product Innovators – 2021 Edition

Welcome to The Top 25 Seafood Product Innovators list, featuring a group of North American seafood providers that have brought an innovative shine to these uncertain times.

It’s been a long, busy 18 months for the seafood industry, and with 2021 a breath away from its final quarter, there’s much to reflect on. From record retail sales to comebacks for foodservice operators and in-person events, it seems stories of hope have begun to arrive after a long suspension. We think this year’s edition of the Top 25 will fit right into that theme.

From 1999 to 2018, the editorial team of SeafoodSource and its previous incarnation, SeaFood Business magazine, worked relentlessly to produce a list of the leading North American seafood suppliers based on reported sales figures. In 2019, we revamped our process, bringing you a new type of compilation celebrating the Top 25 seafood product innovations that transformed the North American industry pre-COVID. In 2020, we shifted our focus to sustainability and conservation, bringing you a collection of North American seafood suppliers making strides in the realm.

With all the creativity blooming amid great chaos over the past 18 months, we thought it pertinent to revisit product innovation once more in 2021. 

To compile 2021’s list, the SeafoodSource editorial team conducted an extensive nomination and analysis process, taking into consideration new product announcements and launches that transpired within the North American market over the course of 2020 and 2021. We accounted for newsworthiness, industry accolades, brand creativity, trendiness, consumer consideration, and more. This resulting list is one that, we feel, extensively catalogues the innovative practices driving seafood product development into a new era, providing a valuable snapshot into the inner creative workings of some of the industry’s most-persevering and promising product engineers. 

This list is categorized alphabetically by supplier name, and is not ranked. Each profile gives an overview of the listed seafood supplier’s recent product launches and a glimpse into their unique approaches to innovation throughout the pandemic. Several profiles also include in-depth insights from the innovators themselves, who discuss where they see product promise for 2022, and more.

SeafoodSource encourages the use of this Top 25 list as an inspirational resource that reflects the modern industry and innovation trends illuminating seafood’s path forward to a post-pandemic world. Click on the toggles below to navigate the 2021 list.

Have seafood product release news you'd like to share with SeafoodSource? Reach out to SeafoodSource at [email protected] or Editorial Project Manager Madelyn Kearns at [email protected].