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Company: Four Winds Seafood
Founder: Ray & Kay Brandhurst
In Business Since: 2006
Products: Fresh Louisiana shrimp
Contact Info: 504-228-8038 Website: www.fourwindsseafood.com
Chefs Collaborative: How did you get involved in the shrimping business?
Ray Brandhurst: I love being on the water, it’s something that’s in you. It’s certainly gotta be in your blood. Shrimping is really hard work and I don’t think you’d put up with it unless it was something that you loved. That’s what it boils down to. I’ve always fished since I was little-bitty. I used to go fishing with my daddy, I was always on the water, and my love of the water just kind of flourished.
When did you start fishing commercially?
When I was 15, I started crabbing with a little-bitty boat. We’d go around selling crabs to the stores in New Orleans, we made a little money and were able to buy a bigger boat from there, and I bout a bigger boat and started fishing for shrimp. I built a boat when I was 22. And I’ve been shrimping ever since (I’m 50 now). I’m still doing it, literally, as we speak.
How would you describe the shrimp you catch? What makes it unique?
Here in Southeast Louisiana we have a unique set of geographical conditions. The Louisiana coast has an extensive estuary system. What we have is numerous fresh water rivers mixing in with the salt waters. We call this sweetwater - it produces a flavorful product. And Louisiana is the largest domestic producer of wild caught shrimp.
You ship directly to restaurants around the country - but you’ve only been doing this for two out of the 30-plus years you’ve been in business. How did you get into working this way?
The business used to be a well-balanced and profitable industry. You used to get paid well for your product, the expenses weren’t so exorbitant, and the ex-vessel prices (what you get when you pull up to the dock and unload) were pretty good.
What I first noticed, some years ago, was that smaller shrimp started losing value. I think a lot of it had to do with the beginnings of industrial aquaculture and farmed shrimp. So I considered doing something different and that’s when I opened up the retail store in St. Bernard’s Parish in the mid-80’s. The purpose of the retail was to offset the low prices we were getting. As aquaculture proliferated, we started to see the value of all sizes of shrimp go down, until none of the domestic shrimp had much value at all.
And then Katrina came. Katrina essentially wiped me out. When you have a natural disaster, the physical building is one thing. That’s the easy part. You can put that back together. But the storm dispersed my customer base. I mean, they’re not coming back, they’re gone. But when your customer base is gone, where are you left?
I had thought about shipping out of state in the past but it was cost-prohibitive. But through a crazy chain of events I was able to get hooked up with Fed Ex. Before Fed Ex I could never get a rate feasible enough to make it work.
Tell me about the chef response to shrimp when you started.
The Food Network had a party for us in New York and there were a bunch of chefs invited. I brought fresh shrimp on the plane with me that I’d just caught. When I put those shrimp out, some of the chefs were eating them raw.
They said they hadn’t seen shrimp like this in forever. One of them from Italy said he hadn’t seen shrimp like this since he was a kid. They were flipping out. They were eating them raw, then they cooked some dishes with them.
Through that, we’ve gained some customers and they are still my customers today. So it’s a good testament to our product, and our service.
What are your biggest challenges in marketing your product?
Commercial fishing is such a demanding job - there’s not that many hours left in the day - so to do national marketing in a small business with a limited advertising budget - we’re a small company so it’s hard to get the word out.
I could never do it without Kay. You’ve got to have a working partner in order to make it work, because the sales and marketing are another job. Without Kay doing that part, it wouldn’t work.
What about challenges in catching the shrimp?
Well, we don’t always catch marketable sized shrimp. So volume wise, the bulk of the shrimp is getting ridiculously low prices. With wild production, you’re always at Mother Nature’s mercy. You can only harvest what’s out there. The bigger the better, that’s what customers want - but I think it pays to be flexible and use the smaller sized shrimp - because that’s what’s available.
Sometimes we gotta travel really far to get the bigger shrimp - and it costs more to get out there. What we’re facing now is higher operating costs - every single component that goes into our operation - ice salt, oil, fuel, nets - every single cost has risen while the ex-vessel prices have dropped.
When is your product available for purchase? Is there anything you sell besides shrimp?
We have fresh, head-on, shell-on shrimp from April to December. We have Individual Quick Frozen (IQF) year-round. In the winter the cold weather causes shrimp to migrate offshore and the production drops. But the frozen product is just as good as it’s a stable, year-round supply. Sometimes I work in January - it really kind of depends. We also have - depending on the season - blue crab, softshell crab, crab meat, crawfish, and some local finfish; mainly croaker, sheepshead, drum, and flounder.
