Anna Marie Seafood

Lance comes from a long line of Louisianans making their living from the land as farmers, trappers, or hunters, and inherited several thousand acres where he still regularly hunts alligators. He entered the shrimp business in 1998. In the beginning, he says, “it was a boom. Dockside prices were tremendous. Everyone was getting a shrimp boat.” He named his business for his boat, the F/V Anna Marie (which, in turn, is named for his daughters), a modest vessel 55 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 6 feet deep, powered by a 350-horsepower engine.

“I’m a totally different fisherman now than I was in the beginning. Before, I tried to haul as much as I could, earn through volume. The size of the shrimp didn’t matter because the price of diesel fuel was sixty cents per gallon and small shrimp fetched a dollar per pound. Now, those same shrimp get fifty to seventy cents per pound, and fuel costs four times as much. I had to figure out how to get more money, so I found ways of targeting bigger shrimp.”

That meant white shrimp, which have a one-year life span and grow fast and big. Lance believes this is the kind of strategy other fisherman should adopt. “Don’t worry about filling up the boat, but target the species that can bring the most dollar value.” And that makes handling easier too.

Lance was lucky. The Anna Marie survived Hurricane Katrina. His partnership with marketumbrella.org also helped see him through that disaster. Its farmers market, the Crescent City Market, has become a remarkably successful venue for introducing consumers to cutting-edge food producers. One of marketumbrella.org’s programs, the White Boot Brigade (WBB), was specifically designed to help improve the direct marketing skills of local shrimpers. (The name comes from the common sight of shrimpers selling their fresh catch boatside without taking off their white boots.) Lance quickly became the WBB’s poster child of a shrimper who pays careful attention to environmental sustainability and to changes in the marketplace, which he exploits through direct marketing. Indeed, he’s one of only three shrimpers recognized by the WBB for “sustainable harvests, cultural preservation, and business innovation.”

“The WBB helped out tremendously—it helped us tell people in other parts of the country our story.” For example, the WBB’s efforts led to profiles of Lance by the PBS series Chef’s A-Field; his participation in discussions with leading New York City chefs sponsored by the Food Network; his introduction to the Google Farmers Market and the Slow Food Network in northern California; his being prominently featured in the Williams-Sonoma catalogue (which reaches one million homes); and his playing a lead role in a Shell Oil Company commercial boasting its contributions to New Orleans businesses after Hurricane Katrina.

Originally, Lance sold most of his shrimp fresh to the public and then froze the remainder and sold them to other markets. “It worked out okay,” recalls Lance, “but it wasn’t the best.” Then, five years ago, he started to sell 2,000 to 3,000 pounds of shrimp per week to a regional grocery chain, Rouses. That’s when he started working with the WBB to help them sharpen their communications about the superior, sweeter taste of Louisiana shrimp. He now ships directly to restaurants around the country, including a $10,000-per-year account with high-end hotels in the Washington, DC region, including Ritz Carlton and Marriott.

It was the Williams-Sonoma deal that catapulted Lance to national attention. Stores across the country had poster-sized pictures of Lance on his boat holding a handful of colorful shrimp. Mail-order customers across the country could get Lance’s shrimp directly—though Williams-Sonoma took nearly all the huge markup.

Another potential marketing coup under negotiation is a feature on Anna Marie Seafood on a boutique website run by FedEx. Originally, FedEx wanted to be a part of the Williams-Sonoma deal, but Williams-Sonoma only ships UPS. So FedEx said they would be willing to set up a new website for Lance to do direct marketing to its customers.

Thanks to assistance from the Louisiana Department of Agriculture, Lance has also cracked open sales to three local Whole Foods Market stores. As their standards for seafood have risen, Whole Foods has sought to replace their fish-farm suppliers with fishermen like Lance. He hopes to eventually sell to additional Whole Foods stores across the country. “Who knows the possibilities?” he says.