A wide selection - that's what customers can find when they visit Ocean Fresh Seafood in North Attleboro. The line of product offerings includes seafood from such faraway places as Iceland and South America.
North Attleboro seafood operation boasts diverse product, customer base
Ocean Fresh Seafood
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Owner: Robert Coutu
Type of Business: Seafood products
Location: 473 East Washington St., North Attleboro
Employees: 85
Year Founded: 1975
Annual Revenue: WND
North Attleboro is hardly what you’d call a seafaring town. Yet consumers from throughout southern New England look to this decidedly inland community as a prime source of fresh seafood.
That’s because North Attleboro is the home of Ocean Fresh Seafood, one of New England’s largest wholesale and retail purveyors of fish products.
Every day, refrigerated Ocean Fresh trucks embark from the company’s East Washington Street headquarters for points as far as New York state and New Hampshire. They’re carrying seafood products to nearly 700 customers – restaurants, supermarkets, small specialty stores, hospitals and nursing homes.
At Ocean Fresh, the line is truly eclectic, ranging from Icelandic halibut and Prince Edward Island shellfish to squid and scungilli.
“If it swims, we have it,” said the company’s vice president, Ron Kaplan. “If we don’t have it, we’ll get it.”
The company draws about 60 percent of its business from its wholesale operations; the balance from its retail store, located at one end of the Ocean Fresh complex in North Plaza, located one block away from North Attleboro center.
The Ocean Fresh building – indeed, the entire mall – is owned by Robert Coutu, who launched the business 30 years ago in space formerly occupied by a now defunct First National supermarket.
Back in 1975, Coutu, then in his 20s, was operating a small fish market about a half-mile north of the Ocean Fresh facility when he decided to launch an ambitious wholesale/retail operation.
“It was his vision to build the business into one of the largest in New England,” Kaplan said.
He has clearly succeeded. Ocean Fresh stocks products from as far away as Iceland and South America, as well as closer waters off Prince Edward Island, Boston, Portland and Gloucester, Mass.
Drivers work long hours to deliver the product to market.
“The first shift starts work at 2 a.m.,” Kaplan said. “They unload the fish that’s delivered from places like Baltimore and Boston, check it for quality and temperature, put it in coolers, then load it on our trucks for delivery throughout the region.”
To carry out that task, Ocean Fresh maintains a fleet of 13 refrigerated vehicles.
As one might imagine, dealing in such a perishable commodity as seafood is an exacting business. One of the biggest daily challenges, according to Kaplan, is the weather.
He said the supply chain is predicated on the weather and is particularly vulnerable to high winds, storms and tides.
Nonetheless, he said, “We get the job done.”
Nor does the company have to deal with much leftover stock. Long experience, Kaplan said, has given the company “a good handle” on its daily inventory needs.
“We pretty much know what we’re going to sell” on a given day, Kaplan said.
Another Ocean Fresh vice president, Bruce Hall, puts the business in an historical perspective.
“The seafood market is the last frontier,” he said. “There are no more butcher shops – no specialty markets.”
Given the unique nature of the business, seafood operations “need to be run by professionals,” Hall observed.
Though Coutu is clearly committed to that business, he’s also a real estate operator of some note. He owns the North Plaza mall, which is thriving today after having virtually vanished from the mercantile scene three decades ago.
The location acquired a fresh infusion of energy a few months back when a new Brooks Pharmacy opened its doors across the parking lot from Ocean Fresh. Simultaneously, Coutu orchestrated a total upgrade of the sprawling parking area, repaving the lot and adding tighter travel lanes and discrete parking spots.
“Before (the renovation),” Hall said, cars would zip across the lot unimpeded, some of them cutting straight across from East Washington to Elm Street to avoid the traffic lights. They can’t do that anymore.”
For those who find the lot cramped, Hall pointed out that it previously averaged only about 30 percent occupancy.
Moreover, he added, there are still plenty of parking spaces for customers of the Ocean Fresh retail store. Then again, the crowds become large enough at Christmas and New Year’s to warrant the retention of special policemen to direct traffic.
But since the store brings in extra hands at its busiest times, nobody gets left out on the holidays. In fact, if you like seafood and you live within Ocean Fresh’s 35-mile retail marketing radius, there’s no need for you ever to go without your favorite finny fare, no matter how exotic.
