Virginia Seafood Producers Get Creative to Make Up for Lost Revenue Amid Pandemic
In partnership with: Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
One week prior to the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020, White Stone Oyster Company had just experienced their biggest sales week ever.
“I started White Stone Oyster Co. in 2014, and we gained a lot of traction by growing a different type of oyster that wasn’t offered here at the time,” says Tom Perry, founder and owner of the company. “We developed more and more wholesale accounts to serve restaurants and our business took off. Then the pandemic happened. We had our biggest sales week ever – then business went to zero.”
White Stone Oyster Co. wasn’t alone. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced restaurants to close their doors, Virginia seafood producers who had been thriving suddenly had no customers. As the nation’s third-largest producer of seafood, Virginia watermen had to think fast. It was a sink-or-swim moment.
“Our sales dropped completely because the majority traditionally had been to restaurants and wholesalers,” says Travis Croxton, who co-owns Rappahannock Oyster Co. in Topping. “We had an internet presence, but it had only represented about 10% of our sales in the past. As people began staying at home, we had a wave of online sales that was super helpful to help us survive.”
Both oyster companies weathered the pandemic by boosting their online presence and doing more direct-to-consumer sales.
“We were ready and optimized for e-commerce – our online business was our only business for a time,” Perry says. “It didn’t cover all our losses, but it helped slow the bleed.”
See more: Virginia’s Top Agricultural Commodities
A New Wave of Seafood Sales
Selling seafood directly to consumers was a relatively new idea for many Virginia producers. Kimberly Reuter, a consultant and e-commerce growth strategist who previously worked for Amazon, has helped more than a dozen Virginia seafood companies grow their online presence in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Pre-COVID, a lot of these businesses were selling wholesale or to restaurants, and as a result, there were challenges for people buying seafood direct because not everyone knows how to prepare it at home,” she says.
The majority of consumers dine out to enjoy seafood, so many are having to learn how to steam a crab or shuck an oyster.
“I tell seafood companies when you start your e-commerce business, your customers need recipes and information on how to serve it and how to present it,” Reuter says.
See more: Virginia’s Bountiful Seafood Harvest
Powerful Partnerships
Another innovative tactic has been to make mutually beneficial partnerships. For example, Rappahannock Oyster Co. partnered with breweries and wineries to offer bags of 25 oysters for them to sell.
“That’s been good for us, and it gives breweries and wineries another reason for their customers to come in,” Croxton says. “People can go to a winery and pick up a couple bottles of wine along with a bag of oysters to take home and enjoy. It can be intimidating to cook new foods, but with all the time people were spending at home, more of them were willing to try new things and learn to cook.”
Many economists are predicting the U.S. economy won’t return to a pre-COVID-19 state until 2022, but Reuter believes Virginia seafood producers will continue to have opportunities to succeed – albeit differently than before.
“The seafood business will grow in direct-to-consumer sales, and the beauty of that is the casual seafood consumer who would go to a raw bar and order oysters probably didn’t have a good understanding of who grew them and where they came from before,” she says. “Now that consumer has the opportunity to connect with the grower, find out how and where the oysters were grown, and why they taste the way they do.”