Page 46 - South Mississippi Living - October, 2020

safe & sound
#VisitMSResponsibly
l
Two Legacies, 94 Years of Experience story by Lynn Lofton photo courtesy of Biloxi Shrimp Co.
BUSINESSES ARE FINDING INNOVATIVE WAYS TO OPERATE DUE TO COVID-19. A good example is Biloxi
Shrimp Co., a combined endeavor of Mark Mavar and Jonathan McLendon who have created a new business model for marketing their wild-caught Gulf Shrimp online.
Their families have 94 years of experience in the seafood industry, and they have been operating together as Biloxi Freezing & Processing, Inc. and M&M Shrimp Company LLC since 2006. This new company was created after Biloxi Freezing began a campaign during COVID-19 to sell directly to the Mississippi Gulf Coast community. After the first month it was clear that the footprint was much larger than anticipated, and many customers were traveling an hour or more to come and buy Biloxi’s shrimp. Impressively, close to 15 percent of domestic, wild-caught shrimp sold in the U.S. comes through Biloxi Freezing.
These two successful businessmen, whose commercial business tag line is ‘The Coolest Guys in Town,’ were born and raised in Biloxi, the seafood capital of the world, where they grew up in their respective families’ shrimp and seafood businesses. Before the pandemic arrived, they served the restaurant/ food service industry and retail stores. In the spring of 2020, they found their freezers full of product that would have
otherwise been shipped to the shuttered restaurant industry.
“Naturally, with shrimp season set
to begin soon, we needed a di erent sales channel to make room in our freezers for the new crop of shrimp soon to arrive at the docks,” Mavar said. “Through the power of social media and an initial online page, we found surprising demand from the public, many of whom would sit in line in their cars and trucks for hours, ice chests ready to pick up large quantities of these amazing wild-caught Gulf shrimp typically sold to fine restaurants.”
Word soon spread about the great restaurant quality and the ‘close to wholesale pricing,’ and all of a sudden a direct sales business was born. So far, after just a couple months in business, Biloxi Shrimp Co. shipped shrimp to 49 of the 50 states in just one week.
“By combining our e icient, clean processing with our shipping and packaging relationships from the wholesale business, we have achieved the amazing result of being able to o er our shrimp to the public at extremely
competitive prices even when shipping is factored in,” McLendon said. “ Now the whole country can enjoy the secret that Biloxians and fine restaurants have been keeping.”
There’s even free shipping on orders of 10 pounds or more and all shoppers can choose the day they want their shrimp delivered. With a 20,000-square-foot processing facility, the company has pioneered the use of optical laser sorting machines in the U.S. shrimp industry, and has worked with suppliers to make all processes faster and more e icient.
“We believe great things happened when we joined forces. The seafood legacies provided by our families guide our success; and with a lineage over 94 years strong, we continue to move large volumes of high-quality, wild-caught Gulf shrimp,” McLendon said.
Biloxi Shrimp Co.
601.385.1824 biloxishrimpco.com
46 | October 2020
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living
o.
C
p
m
i
r
h
S
i
x
o
B
i