Gorton's of Gloucester
Gorton's of Gloucester is a subsidiary of the Japanese seafood conglomerate Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd., producing fishsticks and other frozen seafood for the retail market in the United States. Gorton’s also has a North American foodservice business which sells to fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's, and an industrial coating ingredients operation. It has been headquartered in Gloucester, Massachusetts since 1849.
The company was founded by Slade Gorton, originally selling salt cod and mackerel. In the early 1900s, the company, then known as Gorton-Pew Fisheries, occupied 15 wharves and 35 buildings in Gloucester, with six other plants on the east coast and a fleet of 55 fishing vessels.
In May 1995 Unilever bought Gorton's from General Mills.
In August 2001, Unilever sold Gorton's and BlueWater Seafoods to Nippon Suisan (USA), Inc., a subsidiary of Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd. for $175 million in cash.
Whaling
In 2005, Gorton's came under attack from Greenpeace, the Environmental Investigation Agency and The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) due to their parent company's involvement in whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Greenpeace and The HSUS hope that international companies owned Nippon Suisan Kaisha (such as Gorton's) will persuade their parent company to stop supporting whaling if they are put under enough pressure [1]. Some have started to boycott Gorton's.
External links
- Official retail website
- Gorton's Fresh Seafood, another official website
- BlueWater Seafoods, Gorton's subsidiary in Canada
- See Food Differently, an August 2004 trade magazine story about Gorton's
- Unilever sells seafood business, an August 2001 article
- McDonald's Filet-O-Fish Sandwich, supplied by Gorton's
- The Greenpeace page on Gorton's
- The Humane Society of the United States says that Gorton's has a "whale" of a problem.
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