SEAFOODNEWS.COM [SCOM] By Ken Coons — September 18, 2014 — Yesterday NAFCO/Congressional Seafood broke ground on a major new processing and distribution facility at the Maryland Seafood Market in Jessup, MD.
The combined companies are already the dominant tenants at the market and are run by Stanley Pearlman with the active involvement of his children. NAFCO is the high volume entity that is the primary seafood supplier to Ahold USA’s Giant banner and also sells Safeway and SuperValu. Congressional is focused on the restaurant trade. The companies have a vast product line.
According to the companies, Congressional hand cuts more than 15,000 pounds of fish daily and delivers to more than 300 restaurants between New Jersey and Virginia. NAFCO processes more than 20,000 pounds of fishery products daily and serves more than 1,100 grocery stores in the mid-Atlantic region.
The new facility is estimated to cost about $9 million and has an 88,000 s.f. footprint. It will be located on 5.5 acres acquired from the Maryland Food Center Authority and provides for additional facility expansion.
"We are very excited to be bringing NAFCO and Congressional Seafood under one roof," said Jon Pearlman, the director of operations and HACCP at Congressional. “We believe the state-of-the-art facility will raise the bar for food safety and enable us to continue to deliver the highest quality seafood to our customers throughout the mid-Atlantic.”
In his remarks, Stanley Pearlman made it clear that the new facility will be “a model for the seafood industry” and not only provides room for growth but also allows his companies to exceed cold chain and HACCP requirements. Like many seafood companies, Congressional had a run in with FDA over HACCP issues back in 2010. The company later said it was a matter of "administrative errors" rather than unsanitary conditions.
Speaking at the groundbreaking in addition to Stanley Pearlman was Steve Shaw of Merritt Properties. The lot and building will be jointly owned by Pearlman and Merritt Properties with NAFCO & Congressional as the initial tenant with Merritt Properties serving as managing partner.
Also speaking was the Executive Director of the Maryland Food Center Authority, Don Darnall. (It was a reunion for him and me as he was one of the early participants in the New England Fisheries Development Foundation’s “Fish School” when he first joined the authority and wanted a quicky seafood education. He is now Dr. Darnall, having earned a PhD since I last saw him.)
In 1983 the seafood wholesalers group moved from the inner harbor area of Baltimore – at that time a pretty unsavory place – to the boondocks of Howard County at Jessup which has since become a thriving wholesale food center. (Ft. Meade, close by, is also expanding rapidly as a cybersecurity center.)
In addition to the excitement over this groundbreaking project the crowd was also upbeat as the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals had each clinched their division titles on Tuesday. Jessup, MD is strategically located between the two major metropolitan areas.
The final speaker was Ken Ulman, Howard County Executive, who gave an energetic speech focused on his business friendly administration. His remarks capped the extraordinary level of cooperation and mutual respect that was obvious among Merrit’s Shaw, the Pearlman family, the authority’s Darnall and the county government.
Site work on the building is underway and the construction of the building should be complete early next year.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.