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Blount Raises the Bar on Product Innovation - May 1, 2002The best parking spot at Blount Seafood’s waterfront processing operation in Warren, R.I., is reserved for the “employee of the quarter.” Blount’s employees, says President Todd Blount, give the company the flexibility to develop 50 to 100 new products a year, a phenomenal rate.Three people work full time on product development, including Jens Retlev, who became Blount’s director of culinary development in 2000 with the purchase of Great Soups. Co-founded by Retley, Great Soups owned the Cook’s & Butler brand. The 100 remaining employees spend about 20 percent of their time on product development, says Blount. Requests from foodservice customers begin the research-and-development process. About half of the new product concepts go to production. Of those, about 9 out of 10 will still be produced after their first year on the market, says Blount. During the second week of April, Blount introduced six new products: a fish cake and clam cake for private label, and a berry soup, carrot ginger soup, Rhode Island clam chowder and Hungarian mushroom soup for Blount’s line. All six made it to production. Such diversification is a far cry from the days when Blount had all of its clams in the Campbell’s Soup can, literally. Campbell’s Soup Co., for which Blount provides clam meat for chowder, was Blount’s only customer during its first 30 years (Blount was incorporated in 1946). Processing clams for Campbell’s is still the claim to fame for the $40 million company. Each day, Blount produces 40,000 pounds of cooked clam meat from 300,000 pounds of surf clams/sea clams or 25,000 pounds of finished clam meat from 300,000 pounds of ocean quahogs. At Campbell’s request, the company developed a process for producing individually quick-frozen clams, which can be added directly to the kettle, saving significant preparation time. In the last five years, Blount has made a major effort to diversify its products and grow its foodservice business. Now, sales of processed clam meat comprise about 35 percent of total sales. Half of the remaining sales are of value-added clam and other products. Blount produces 50,000 pounds of soups and sauces per day. Fresh soups are sold under the Cook’s & Butler brand, and frozen soups are sold under the Blount brand. At its New Bedford, Mass., plant, Blount produces 10,000 pounds of breaded products, including calamari, scallops and clam strips, and 12,000 pounds of hand-shucked clams from 80,000 pounds of shell stock.“Every foodservice product goes back to the clam,” says Todd Blount, noting that one way or another, Blount’s clam-processing history opened the door to developing every new product. L.D. All contents copyright ©1999 Seafood Business magazine |
