The Aftermath of the BP Oil Spill, Hurricane Irene & Other Seafood Industry Challenges – Is There Any Good News?

Since the BP oil spill the seafood industry has been forced to deal with a host of man-made and natural catastrophes:

 

– Serious flooding that has created a huge dead zone along the Mississippi down to the Gulf of Mexico.

– Fishing operations costs going up due to lost time during the recent storms, hurricane damage to boats and equipment, and sea life moving further away to avoid the dead zone forcing fisherman to travel further for their catch.

– Venezuela closing their conservancies reducing seafood supplies.

– The Chinese introducing inferior seafood products – especially crab meat – at about half the cost of quality crab meat.

– Ongoing supply and demand fluctuations impacting costs.

– Hurricane Irene.

 

With the ongoing stormy outlook that seems to be the norm for the seafood industry, it appears that Box Hill Crabcakes (in Abingdon, MD) is on the sunny side of the street.

 

Business is Not as Usual for Box Hill Crabcakes After the BP Oil Spill, Hurricane Irene, etc.

 

Business is booming, revenues continue to climb, and the customers couldn’t be happier. In spite of all the bad news for the seafood industry, Box Hill Crabcakes has plenty of good news to share:

 

– Tom Kanaras, co-owner of Box Hill, reports that the BP oil spill did not have a negative impact on their Maryland crab cakes business. As a matter of fact, Mr. Kanaras stated that, “Since the BP oil spill and fishing ban, east coast crab meat has been exceptional and there’s been a positive influx of crab meat supplies.”

– With the greater crab meat supplies, the summer prices for crab meat dropped to about $13 per pound; Box Hill passed the lower prices to its restaurant customers with specials they held throughout the summer months.

– Box Hill has launched a new website, www.boxhillcrabcakes.com that makes it much easier to order their premium crab cakes online – especially for holiday and special occasion shoppers.

–  Box Hill Crabcakes has teamed with FedEx to offer better shipping and order tracking services for their customers around the country.

–  A new customer referral program that rewards loyal Box Hill Crabcakes’ customers is now in effect.http://www.boxhillcrabcakes.com/referral-program-maryland-crab-cakes-delivered-maryland-crabcakes.php

–  Even Hurricane Irene didn’t impact the Box Hill business. The Kanaras clan (who never lost power during the hurricane) was actually able to feed some of their neighbors when the surrounding community lost all electricity.

 

It appears that the seafood restaurant gods are smiling down upon the Kanaras Family and Box Hill Crabcakes.

 

It’s Not About the Gods

 

After 27 years of being in business, co-owners Tom and Chris Kanaras know what it takes to weather any storm to continue the success of their family business. It’s all about continuing to offer high-quality products and maintaining outstanding customer service. As Tom Kanaras points out:

 

“Sometimes you’re able to do well and sometimes you just gotta take a bullet. We can’t raise our prices with the fluctuation of supply and demand. But, we can keep the quality at the high level that our customers have come to expect while bringing superior service to our customers. That’s our thing and we do it well.”