Cooke Continues Buying Spree With Seafood Distributor Slade Gorton
SAINT JOHN — Cooke Inc. has made another key acquisition, bringing Massachusetts’ seafood distributor Slade Gorton into its family of companies, in a deal penned March 14.
The decision to acquire the 95-year-old company, headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts came together at Seafood Expo North America in Boston with Cooke CEO Glen Cooke and Slade Gorton CEO Kim Gorton, signing the binding purchase agreement.
Neither side is saying how much the deal is worth.
“As the world has evolved over the past several years, it became clear that to accelerate our mission and impact, it made sense to join forces with a diverse, vertically integrated company run by people who share our family values and vision for reshaping the consumer’s experience with seafood,” Gorton said in a joint press release with Cooke about the deal.
The acquisition will be finalized in the weeks ahead.
Slade Gorton has East Coast processing facilities and a storage and transportation network throughout the United States, along with a variety of retail-ready fish products.
Under the acquisition, Slade Gorton will maintain its branding and its leadership Richardson says.
“Typically, with acquisitions of companies that have such a storied history and a well-recognized brand with their customers, we don’t make many changes,” he says. “It’s one of the reasons why Kim [Gorton] and [Mike Gorton Jr.] will remain …as CEO and executive vice president.”
“They know the company better than anyone, and they know their customers. They have the relationships.”
He says this continuity is important as Slade Gorton transitions into the Cooke global family of companies, which has grown significantly in recent years.
Since getting its start in 1985, Cooke has grown beyond its original New Brunswick borders to include processing, distribution, and wild fisheries operations in 12 different countries.
Recently, Cooke expanded its operations in the United States, including with the acquisition of Slade Gorton.
“We acquired a seafood distributor [All Seas Wholesale] in San Francisco as well to serve the Pacific Coast markets. The distributor [The Fish Company] of Miami would serve the southern US and Florida… In October of 2020, we also acquired a company in New Bedford [Massachusetts] called Mariner Seafood. And they have two processing plants and transportation distribution network in the Massachusetts area from New Bedford. So we’ve really been growing our distribution footprint in the United States,” Richardson says.
Not to mention numerous seafood-related acquisitions in Latin America, Europe and just last year, in Australia in everything from fish food companies to shrimp farms.
Richardson says the goal of all the acquisitions has been to keep on a trajectory of increasing distribution and sales of Cooke products across the globe.
“Cooke is a 100 percent family-owned company based in New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada. The Cooke family has a mission with our team to become, and be, an exceptionally strong, customer service focused, family seafood company to serve customers around the world.”
In Atlantic Canada, the company has made some strategic logistical investments such as the acquisition of Connors Transfer Ltd. by Cooke subsidiary Shoreland Transport.
And late last year the company announced that it would be “teaming up” with Ganong, the well-known New Brunswick chocolatier and candy company, to strengthen and grow that brand.
As for the local impact of the Slade Gorton acquisition goes, Richardson says new business acquisitions by Cooke usually result in more staff at the Saint John headquarters, or throughout the other Maritime offices.
“No matter where we do an acquisition around the world, Cooke always takes the opportunity to strengthen our back office operations in Atlanta Canada,” he says.
“We do plan to create more jobs back here at home to support this acquisition. And oftentimes, they can come in the way of professional services, whether it be accounting, logistics, payroll, human resources, you name it.”
Alex Graham is a Huddle reporter in Saint John. Send her your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].