Prior to World War II, Americans primarily ate foods grown locally and regionally, because there were very few products that could be packed and shipped to distant locations and remain fresh. People who did not live near coastal waterways generally were unable to enjoy seafood such as shrimp, crab, and oysters.

Sea Island Packing Company began overcoming this seafood distribution obstacle in late 1948, when it launched operations on the grounds of a former naval training base on Georgia’s St. Simons Island. The company immediately began utilizing a converted naval cold-storage freezer to experiment with different methods of freezing locally caught shrimp.

Within a year, Sea Island Packing Company had developed an Individual Quick Freezing (IQF) process, which “flash freezes” each shrimp to lock in its original state of freshness. Shortly after pioneering this revolutionary new technique, Sea Island Packing Company changed its name to SeaPak Corporation.

SeaPak Corporation used the new IQF technology to launch an exciting new product: peeled, deveined, and quick-frozen shrimp. Later, the company added other new products, including raw, breaded shrimp, fish sticks, and fish portions.

The rapidly growing business began marketing its line of frozen seafood throughout the Southeast, yet SeaPak still was unable to keep up with nationwide demand. Many grocers did not have large, cold-storage freezers to store the newly developed frozen products. In addition to the grocers’ limited freezer space, there weren’t even enough refrigerated trucks available to transport the products to grocery stores.

SeaPak management then formed Aero Foods to help reach frozen-food aisles everywhere. Using the runways next door that the U.S. Navy operated for pilot training during the war, Aero Foods was able to deliver frozen SeaPak products by air directly to grocers in far-off locales. Soon, consumers all over the country were enjoying delicious frozen shrimp.

In 1976, Rich Products Corporation, based in Buffalo, NY, acquired SeaPak Shrimp & Seafood Co. Rich’s was already one of the nation’s largest frozen-food processing companies, and the acquisition of SeaPak increased its product portfolio by impressive proportions.

Today, SeaPak is a seafood industry leader and the country’s No. 1-selling retail shrimp brand within the frozen specialty seafood category. The brand offers the nation’s widest variety of coastal-inspired seafood favorites, which consumers across America have been enjoying for decades.

The company also is respected for its strict adherence to best practices in seafood sourcing and sustainability. To learn more about these policies, see the Sourcing & Sustainability section of the SeaPak website.