July 16, 2025 — New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Northern Wind has launched a global scallop import program.
The new program comes after Northern Wind acquired Atlantic Capes in December 2024, a move that Northern Wind CEO Ken Melanson told SeafoodSource is related to the diminishing availability of U.S. scallops.
January 16, 2025 — Northern Wind’s recent acquisition of Atlantic Capes Fisheries was in large part due to diminishing scallop quotas in the U.S. Northeast.
Atlantic Sustainable Catch, which is composed of Northern Wind, Suncoast Seafood, and Raymond O’Neill & Son Fisheries, acquired the business in late December 2024, which will see Northern Wind take over the processing and sales division of the company. Both companies are based in the Northeast U.S. and process a significant portion of the scallop quota in the region.
November 18, 2021 — New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Northern Wind has announced a new partnership with Legit Fish that will enable the company to provide full-chain traceability for all of its domestically caught, Northern Atlantic scallops.
Starting Wednesday, 17 November, every case of Northern Wind scallops sourced from the Northeast U.S. scallop fishery will have third-party traceability of the products origin, harvest area, and landing-date – verifiable to government harvest records. Foodservice operators and consumers will be able to scan a QR code on the package to access information on the products, the company said.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource
November 10, 2021 — Selling a company after 35 years of work is no small decision, but Northern Wind Co-Founder Ken Melanson told SeafoodSource it was the best way to take elevate the company to the next level.
Melanson co-founded Northern Wind with Michael Fernandes in 1987, building it from what he described as “nothing, absolutely nothing” to a company with USD 200 million (EUR 173 million) in annual sales.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource
June 5, 2020 — Scallop producer Northern Wind is partnering with fellow Massachusetts company Legit Fish to make its products traceable to the source.
The technology provided by Legit Fish, which the company is making available to any interested foodservice and retail customers, will track Northern Wind’s product supply chain from its vessel to the processor.
Northern Wind’s Co-CEO George Kouri told IntraFish the technology has been more than a year in the making, and is customized for the seafood business.
“We now believe as things begin to open up, and we’re in the early stages of the new scallop season, that now is the time to make this announcement,” he said.
May 28, 2020 — New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Northern Wind announced 27 May the company has formed a new partnership with Legit Fish, a Boston, Massachusetts-based tech company focusing on seafood traceability.
According to a release from the company, the partnership has been in the works for more than a year, with Northern Wind Chairman Ken Melanson and CEO George Kouri working to “fine-tune the traceability and scalability” of the technology. The new technology will allow Northern Wind to have full traceability of scallops the company sells, including origin, landing date, harvest area, and sustainability profiles.
April 8, 2020 — Kenny Melanson has managed not to furlough or lay off employees at his seafood company, but all nonessential workers have been sent home. Now it’s core staff, hair-netted and suited up, spreading fat sea scallops across a mechanized belt and running them through two brine tanks and two washes and then a quick-freeze. There’s a wall of pallets, hundreds of boxes labeled “fresh seafood,” all of it enveloped in sheets of plastic wrap. Waiting for what’s next.
He runs Northern Wind in New Bedford, Mass., contracting with 74 fishing vessels and employing 125 people. In business 33 years, the company sells about 15 million pounds of scallops and about 6 million pounds of ahi tuna a year.
In the absence of sales, Melanson is running 150,000 pounds of sea scallops a day through individual tunnel freezers, banking them for when the pandemic is over. But cash flow is getting tight. And he worries that when regular life resumes, a glut of scallops will mean tanking prices.
“We could obviously tell our suppliers we would prefer if you don’t fish for the next 30 days,” Melanson said. “But I’m very concerned and nervous about the 28- and 29-year employees and the crews we’ve built up to produce these quantities. They all live paycheck to paycheck.”
March 5, 2020 — New Bedford, Massachusetts-based seafood supplier Northern Wind is launching a new line of culinary-inspired seafood products under its Bon Cuisine brand this month.
Sixteen offerings comprise the latest Bon Cuisine line, including Zucchini & Smoked Salmon Fritters, Spinach & Cheese Salmon Kiev, Salmon En Croute, Pre-fried Crab Bites, Raw Garlic Butter Shrimp Skewers, Pre-Fried Shrimp Zucchini Fritters, and a Hoki Fish Taco Kit. Catering to consumer demand for adventurous flavors and ready-to-cook convenience, the new range “offers customers a trendy restaurant quality seafood option,” Northern Wind explained in a 2 March press release.
January 8, 2020 — Northern Wind, based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A., is nearing completion on a state-of-the-art 38,000-square-foot processing and freezing facility on the New Bedford waterfront.
The new facility represents a significant expansion of the company, which is a direct off-loader, processor, and distributor of fresh and frozen scallops. According to a release from the company, the new expansion represents a USD 12 million (EUR 10.7 million) investment.
December 19, 2019 — Northern Wind is already one of the three largest processors, distributors and direct offloaders of fresh and frozen scallops in North America, but its recently announced $12 million plant expansion in New Bedford, Massachusetts, promises to also make it an even larger player in both the scallop and overall seafood space, CEO George Kouri tells Undercurrent News.
The 32-year-old company revealed this week that it is in the process of completing construction on what will be a 38,000 square foot processing facility with a 21,600 square foot freezer capable of holding up to 5.5m pounds of seafood. That’s 11 times the company’s previous freezer holding capacity.
The new freezer is already up and running, and the rest of the facility could be ready to roll shortly after New Year’s Day, Kouri said.
Northern Wind, which opened some 32 years ago, is already processing some 18m lbs of scallops annually, buying all of the scallops produced by some 70 vessels with which the company has 30+ year agreements. Though imports account for between 25% and 30% of annual scallop sales.