TalentView: Lauren Enz, Searenity Seafoods

Lauren Enz has caused ripples of excitement in the US seafood world recently, with the launch of her new sales and product development consultancy, Searenity Seafoods.

Since her new project was announced, the flurry of positive responses from the aquaculture and seafood community on both sides of the Atlantic has left Lauren both grateful and excited for what’s to come. 

“It's exciting to see people in the industry support a project like this, and I'm so thankful for all the positive feedback and support,” Lauren tells WeAreAquaculture. 

The dynamic seafood marketing and product development executive, who most recently worked for The Kingfish Company – now one of her inaugural clients – is known for her creativity and passion in linking seafood producers with customers, as well as her deep insight into the seafood business across the entire value chain, from production to plate. 

When speaking with Lauren to find out more about her career and latest project, it’s clear she relishes being part of the new wave of land-based seafood farmers, and working with multiple species in diverse locations.  

"Right now, I’m diving in to learn about the products. I’ve been very lucky to go out and visit each farm that I’m representing, to learn about their farming method, their standard operating procedures, their quality assurance, their sustainability certifications,” she says. 

“It’s been such an interesting and humbling experience – you go in thinking you know seafood, but I did not know about RAS technology, so I’m learning all about that,” Lauren says.  

“I’ve already been to Iceland, Spain and the Netherlands, and soon I’m getting ready to go visit Brianna Warner in Maine to see her facility. It’s been a very exciting two or three months, with lots of travel, lots of learning.” 

“What I’m noticing is that each one of these farms have similar challenges and opportunities, and I’m hopeful that I can connect them all and help them collaborate amongst each other and learn from each other," Lauren says. 

Raised in Ohio, Lauren was given hands-on experience in the seafood industry from an early age. When she was five years old, her father started the seafood distribution company Midwest Seafood “around the dining table”, as Lauren puts it – and she was encouraged to pitch in.  

“I grew up taking phone calls,” Lauren says. “We would fly in fresh fish from all over the world and process it in our facility there in Ohio. Over time, we grew the business, and when I graduated from college, I joined full time.” 

Lauren and her husband spent a decade with Midwest Seafood, handling all fronts of the business from Sales and Marketing to Operations and Finance, but after her father and his co-founder retired, she decided to pursue a new direction in her career. 

This saw Lauren make the jump from a small family-run business to corporate America, joining Darden Restaurants, where she managed seafood and commodities purchasing for seven years, and later Mark Foods, the largest US importer of Chilean seabass, lobster and octopus, as Vice President of Business Development.  

Working at Darden gave her valuable insights into seafood from the corporate purchasing perspective, while her role at Mark Foods allowed Lauren to hone her expertise in seafood product development, creating value-added seabass products for food service and retail customers. 

But Lauren's story took an unexpected turn when she took a call from Ohad Maiman, then CEO of The Kingfish Company, the Netherlands yellowtail farmer embarking on an ambitious new land-based aquaculture project in Maine.  

"We had met before, and we’d been talking about the markets a lot. Chilean sea bass traded around the same pockets where yellow tail traded. And that's when Ohad asked me to join the team. It was very exciting, because it was such a great opportunity to learn about RAS systems, the technology for farming fish on land, and then this great high-end quality product, produced domestically here in the US.” 

Lauren became Vice President of Sales at Kingfish Maine – a role that not only expanded her skillset but also developed her understanding of the emerging land-based aquaculture sector.

However, delays in the permitting process meant the Maine project needed a little more time to mature – giving Lauren an opportunity to broaden her reach as a consultant. 

“Kingfish Maine has great support there. The desire and need and want is there. It's just unfortunately the permitting process takes time before the project can move forward.” 

That’s when it occurred to Lauren that other RAS-based operators may also need similar expertise in product development, and could do with some help making those all-important connections with US corporate buyers and culinary experts. 

"I got to thinking about my days as a corporate buyer. You're a very busy person in corporate America - you can't take the call for everybody. But when you have somebody that has an array of unique niche products, that makes it much easier to take that call,” she explains. 

“My hope with Searenity Seafoods is that I'm going to be known as that food finder of sustainable products for these corporate buyers.”  

“I'm able to not only talk about Dutch yellowtail and what we do at The Kingfish Company, but I can also talk about frozen turbot from Stolt Sea Farm. Or I can then switch over and talk about Arctic char from Matorka in Iceland, or seaweed from Atlantic Sea Farms in Maine."

"So far, I’ve had some great responses - the excitement is there. So hopefully this will be a win for everybody,” she says. 

Lauren already has an impressive array of clients, each representing a “niche” seafood species, with sustainability as a shared philosophy. In addition to The Kingfish Company in Maine and the Netherlands, Lauren is also working with Matorka in Iceland, Stolt Sea Farms in Spain, Pine Island Redfish in Florida, and seaweed producer, Atlantic Sea Farms in Maine. 

“Each company and each project are different, but the most important thing right now is building a platform where I can easily input these products into menus across the U.S."

"Some producers want to focus more on frozen and some want to focus more on fresh, depending on where they are located and what their menu capabilities and operational perspectives are.” 

“But my biggest task right now is to make these products more mainstream,” Lauren explains. 

“That’s done through a lot of ideation, menu development, conversations around the sustainability certification. How can we highlight these products on the menu? How can we prepare or cook these products so we can find a way for them to cross over into other market segments?” 

“For instance, yellowtail is traditionally seen as a Japanese menu item. So, my focus is to try to make that transition over to American standard, white tablecloth, polished casual restaurants as well,” she says. 

In the short term, Lauren expects most of her work will be focused on food service rather than retail, and she will be working closely with chefs on developing products and menus targeting U.S. customers. 

“It’s about showing the innovation, the versatility of the product, and educating the culinarian on the farming method and the sustainability. It’s about working with them so they really understand the product. For example, they might know a certain seafood product as a sushi or sashimi ingredient, but not that it also sautés and pan-fries really well.” 

Through her expertise in product development, Lauren aims to support her clients in reaching a wider range of corporate customers for their products. 

“Most of these RAS farms have done a great job of investing on the farming side – they are experts in that. But when it comes to transitioning from the farm to the plate, that’s more challenging for them. They don’t know how to do the product development side. They don’t have the processing or packaging capabilities; they can’t innovate there. I’m really hoping I can bring my product knowledge into this and help them connect from the farm all the way to the plate.” 

“It’s very rare that we find that customer in the supply chain, especially in the U.S., that wants to take the whole fish and do something with it. A crucial part of the success here is figuring out that value-added, how to put the product in the right format, how to package it, how to go to market with it,” Lauren explains. 

“But the biggest part has already been conquered, and that is knowing how to grow and farm a sustainable product,” she smiles. 

Looking ahead, Lauren says sustainability will remain at the heart of her business. 

“I really hope that Searenity Seafoods is known to the buyers, to the culinarians, and to the consumers as a company that is a steward of our environment," Lauren says.  

“I want to bring these sustainable stories to the forefront and help these unique niche products get onto menus across the United States.” 

“I hope that by doing what I’m doing, I will encourage other seafood farmers who are passionate about what they do, but who don’t know how to get their product to market. I hope I get the opportunity to work with more people like that, because there are some amazing people in this industry,” Lauren says. 

“I’m excited that I get to be part of it.”