Robert Wholey & Co. started its seafood business in the 1980s, claiming to be the first company to offer a bag of fish to retail customers in the United States.
when Lipari Foods acquired Wholey's in 2007the company had four SKUs of bagged fish – whiting, roe, sea trout and flounder.
“That was it. It was about as basic as it gets,” said Lipari Foods VP of Seafood Joe VanZandt. “Today, we have about 125 SKUs.”
VanZandt, who has a long history in the grocery industry, including decades at chains such as Publix and Albertson's, rose through the ranks at Lipari, becoming manager and then vice president, building his career with the Wholey's seafood brand. last 15 years.
“When we bought Wholey, we took a serious look at how we could improve [our seafood offerings]VanZandt told SeafoodSource at the 2024 Seafood Expo North America in Boston, Massachusetts, USA in March. “At the time, there really wasn't a lot of retail fish, so we started making roe. Then we started doing value-added things like boil-in-a-bag shrimp and breaded popcorn shrimp, butterfly shrimp, and coconut shrimp. It just went from there.”
Now, from its base in Warren, Michigan, USA, Wholey launches an entirely new line of seafood products annually, requiring a year-round product development process that requires an international team of sourcing, development, quality assurance, logistics and sales.
“We look for innovation, but we also do everything in line with our core value of maintaining a good quality product. To quote Robert Wholey, “Cheap fish ain't good and good fish ain't cheap,” VanZandt said. “We don't want to make it cheap because if we did that, we're not going to get repeat business – people coming back to you, even at a great price. Lipari insists that whatever brand they buy, it must perform at a very high level.”
Wholey relies on certifications such as Best Aquaculture Practices and insists on sourcing shrimp without sodium tripolyphosphate, according to VanZandt.
“We do our own testing because we want to make sure we have the best, and part of that is we want to keep it as pure as possible,” VanZandt said.
Whole products are distributed in…
