The Seafood Nutrition Partnership (SNP) has debuted a new seafood program intended to promote direct-to-consumer (DTC) companies and brands aimed at driving seafood sales and consumption.
As part of its Fall In Love With Seafood marketing campaign, SNP’s new Shipped Direct program will promote DTC companies and brands through web, email, and social platforms and push consumers toward shopping directly through participating companies' online stores, SNP said in a press release.
Pacific Seafood, Sitka Seafood Market, FultonFishMarket.com, and Bakkafrost are partnering with SNP to start the new program. SNP is also reaching out to other suppliers and is inviting interested companies that want to participate to contact SNP Founder and President Linda Cornish.
"We want families everywhere to eat high-quality seafood and enjoy easy access to the healthiest protein on the planet from their favorite physical or online stores.” Pacific Seafood Vice President of Marketing and Development Bill Hueffner said.
Cornish said a big reason behind starting the new campaign is giving Americans easier access to seafood. Roughly 90 percent of Americans are not meeting the country's Dietary Guidelines recommendation to eat seafood at least twice a week, Cornish said.
“Consumers and health influencers often ask us where to buy high-quality sustainable seafood. We recommend buying from their favorite retailers and restaurants, and now we can share a list of companies that ship seafood directly to them,” Cornish said.
The new program also aims to capitalize on consumers' growing comfortability with purchasing groceries and seafood online since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, as consumer spending on online grocery platforms jumped mid-pandemic amid lockdowns.
Groceries purchased online comprised 7.2 percent of all grocery spending in 2023 – more than 35 percent above pre-pandemic levels, according to McKinsey & Company’s The State of Grocery in North America 2023 report, Cornish told SeafoodSource.
Sales have continued to rise in 2024, with sales in the U.S. online grocery market rising 1.8 percent in January 2024 compared to January 2023, reaching USD 8.5 billion (EUR 7.8 billion), according to Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopper data.
“Consumers are now more comfortable ordering groceries online. We see this as an advantage for the seafood category as consumers can access a wider variety of healthy, sustainable fish and seafood more than ever before as the number of seafood companies offering DTC programs has increased,” Cornish said.
Partners in SNP’s new program pay a nominal sponsorship fee to participate in the year-long Fall in Love with Seafood Shipped Direct program, Cornish told SeafoodSource.
The dedicated page on SNP’s website showcases partner suppliers with product and page shout-outs. One company will be highlighted monthly on the page, on SNP’s social media channels, and in its monthly newsletters that reach thousands of consumers and registered dietitians, Cornish said.
