Anna Marie Seafood
Where are you located?
On Bayou Terrebonne in a town called Montegut, 20 miles south of Houma. The reason I chose to move here was because of the bayou. I moved here the year of Katrina. I wanted a place where I could park the boat at my house. We are able to bring the boat here and process the product. We have a storage freezer and we have the things in place it takes for us to move what our two boats produce.
Why is your shrimp frozen? Is it fresh?
The style of freezing we are doing is revolutionary. It has been done in Alaska for 25 years. We freeze at 45 below zero while we are catching them on the boat and it locks in the out-of-the-water quality with these shrimp. It is something you cannot found anywhere else. Fresh shrimp is only as fresh as you can get it to market. It may be 5-7 days old by the time fresh shrimp makes it to market and in my eyes that is not considered fresh. By flash freezing, you are getting the highest quality shrimp.
Where do you sell your fish and shrimp?
When I started fishing I knew I was going to land my own fish and try to find homes for it and I started early on with some chefs in New Orleans that I was doing business with the shrimp and bycatch from shrimp boats. We put together a group for chefs that was interested in buying direct with fisherman. We have them the day we offload the fish or the day after. A big portion will get sent to Canada and some to Florida. We will keep some for the market and some for the chefs in New Orleans and that’s kind of how we divide the fish up when the boat comes in.
How much of your product is sold at Red Stick Farmers Market?
I have been doing the BREADA Farmers Market for about 16 years. Fish has always been one of our best sellers at the Market. We only sell probably 15-20% of what we produce at the Red Stick Farmers Market, but it has opened so many doors for us and put us in places we could never imagine being. Having that public storefront and having that exposure, it has brought us a lot of places and has employed more people in my business.
What does BREADA mean to you?
My relationship with BREADA is important because it allows us to get this quality seafood to the consumer. It has been the highlight of our business. We go twice a week and we’re always excited to see what the consumers want. It opens our eyes to the possibilities. I get great joy when I get feedback from the consumer on how much they appreciate what we are doing for them. It’s a relationship and it goes both ways. Most people only get to eat fish in a restaurant. What we bring here is quality stuff that they can get and bring home and cook themselves.
Why should people buy Louisiana seafood?
It’s very important for people to support Louisiana’s fishermen because it is part of our heritage. It’s part of what you associate South Louisiana with-good quality seafood. In this globalization, it’s not easy for a consumer to get the quality seafood that we bring to the table.
Learn more about Anna Marie Seafood with this video from This Week in Louisiana Agriculture with a bonus cooking demo of fish and grits from our own Chef Celeste.