Jeff Holden grew up in Portland when groundfish were abundant and the fishing industry thrived. At age 14, he was working from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Brown’s Wharf in Portland packing whiting. He laughs to remember how once, walking home after work, he caught a ride with a fellow who put up with his fishy smell for just about a block, and then suddenly announced he had to let him out because he was taking the next turn. “He went around the block and came out up the street,” Holden says.
In those days, lobstermen threw out the Jonah crabs that sneaked into their traps, but by 1975 crabmeat was beginning to catch on. Holden, who had been lobster fishing and then decided instead to open a fish market on Munjoy Hill, started processing seafood when he hired two women to pick crab. The rules were different then. The women worked at a makeshift table made of a piece of plywood covered with fiberglass and set on totes.
The demand for crabmeat grew, outstripping fish sales, and after about five years, Holden focused entirely on it. In ensuing years, he added fresh and frozen lobster meat and tail, and moved the business several times to accommodate its expansion. In 2000, he bought out Claw Island Lobster of Vinalhaven, which processed whole frozen lobster. Last year, after encountering too many problems operating the processing plant on the island, he moved that facet of the business to South Portland.
There, his plant has all stainless steel equipment and employs the latest freezing methods, using liquid nitrogen from a 9,000-gallon tank that looms outside the building. In 2003, the plant processed five million pounds of crabs and three million pounds of lobster. That makes Holden, at 51, the largest seafood processor in Maine except for Great Eastern Mussel Farms of Tenants Harbor.
During his busy season, from July through November, he employs 80 full-time workers and up to 200 part-time. He minimizes seasonal layoffs by planning vacations for slower periods.
Portland Shellfish utilizes every ounce of each animal. Until 1999, farmers stockpiled waste by-product from the plant to use as compost, but then they were forced to stop by the Environmental Protection Agency. Holden had to find a new way to use the by-product, and with help from the Maine Compost Team, he developed Gardener’s Gold Organic Shellfish Compost. Now, the company also makes Gardener’s Gold Potting Soil and Planting Soil.
Portland Shellfish is beginning to diversify with value-added products, starting with frozen crab cakes and lobster cakes. The cakes are made in Atlanta with crab and lobster meat Holden ships to Inland Seafood, a large seafood distributor with which he formed an alliance in 2002 to expand his marketing capability. They are being sold in Maine at local restaurants and fish markets and Shaw’s Supermarket fish counters.
Holden hopes to develop further value-added products, including salads, crab and lobster sausage and split stuffed lobster, all of which will be made in the South Portland plant as soon as it is geared up for this type of operation. Maine chef Stuart Littlefield, who owns Coastal Creations in Oxford, is working on the recipes. “He’s come up with some awesome recipes,” says Terri Jordan, who helps market Portland Shellfish products. “No carbohydrates, no filler. They’re quite healthy.”
Holden’s brother-in-law, Scout Wuerthner, handles buying crabs and lobsters and distributing fresh and frozen product. Most of the crabs are by-catch from lobstermen who fish near and off shore. Portland Shellfish will pick up crabs if the amount available makes it worthwhile. The company buys as much crab as it can from Maine; the rest comes from other New England states. Holden says about 90 percent of their lobster is from Maine fishermen.
Wuerthner deals with supermarkets and large seafood distributors who send Portland Shellfish products throughout Maine and across the country to large consumers like cruise ships, resorts and chain restaurants. Jordan takes their products not only to the Boston Seafood Show, but also to shows in other areas, including the West Coast and Chicago, and as far afield as Brussels, Belgium.
“We’ve been stretching our legs trying to expand into some new marketing areas,” says Jordan, who helped develop catchy labels and packaging like the Party Bucket of Crab Claws, the Wicked Picked sticker for their “Hand Picked Maine Crab Meat” and various advertising materials featuring “Homah the Crab,” drawn by four year-old Hannah Wuerthner.
The Portland Shellfish web site is being rebuilt, but further information about Gardener’s Gold products is available at gardenersgoldorganic.com.