October 29, 2020 — A division of New Brunswick seafood giant Cooke Inc. has acquired Mariner Seafood LLC of New Bedford, Mass., expanding the family-owned company’s operations in the United States.
True North Seafood, the flagship brand and processing arm of Cooke, purchased Mariner Seafood for US$2.75 million after the U.S. company filed for bankruptcy protection last month. The sale was approved by a Massachusetts court Monday.
The sale includes two processing plants in the port of New Bedford capable of processing more than 8,000 tonnes a year of seafood product, including scallops, haddock, cod, salmon and shrimp.
Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke, said it has been a dream of the family seafood company to have a presence in the historic, high-value fishing port.
“We now have over 4,000 Cooke employees in 22 U.S. states and we will continue to invest and grow our New Bedford processing operations,” he said in a statement.
Cooke, which started in rural New Brunswick in 1985 with three employees, now has a global workforce of more than 10,000 employees in 10 countries. It claims to be the largest privately held family seafood company in the world.