Gorton's of Gloucester is a subsidiary of Japanese seafood conglomerate
Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd., producing
fishstick
Fish fingers (British English) or fish sticks (American English) are a processed food made using a whitefish, such as cod, hake, haddock, shark or pollock, which has been battered or breaded. They are commonly available in the frozen food se ...
s and other frozen
seafood
Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of molluscs (e.g. bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters and mussels, and cephalopods such as octopus an ...
for the retail market in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Gorton's also has a North American food service business which sells to fast-food restaurants such as
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...
, and an industrial coating ingredients operation. It has been headquartered in
Gloucester, Massachusetts
Gloucester () is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is a part of Massachusetts's North Shore. The population was 29,729 at the 2020 U.S. Census. An important center of the fishing industry and a ...
since 1849.
History
The company traces its roots to a fishery called
John Pew & Sons.
William Pew, son of John Pew, picked up fishing after serving as a Colonial soldier in the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
. While most people moved West after the war, Pew turned eastward and arrived in
Gloucester, Massachusetts
Gloucester () is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is a part of Massachusetts's North Shore. The population was 29,729 at the 2020 U.S. Census. An important center of the fishing industry and a ...
, in 1755. The father-and-son fishery business emerged as an official commercial company, John Pew & Sons, in 1849.
When nearby
Rockport's chief industry, the Annisquam Cotton Mill, burned down, Slade Gorton, the mill's superintendent, was out of a job. At his wife's urging, he began a fishing business in 1874 which was known as Slade Gorton & Company, and began to pack and sell salt codfish and mackerel in small kegs. This company was the first to package salt-dried fish in barrels. In 1899, the company patented the "Original Gorton Fish Cake". In 1905, the Slade Gorton Company adopted the fisherman at the helm of a schooner (the "Man at the Wheel") as the company trademark. Today, he is known as the Gorton's Fisherman.
In 1906, Slade Gorton & Company, John Pew & Sons, and two other Gloucester fisheries merged into the Gorton-Pew Fisheries. They made Gorton's codfish cakes a household name in
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
.
The company went into the fish-freezing business in the early 1930s. In 1949, Gorton-Pew made headlines when it drove the first refrigerator trailer truck shipment of frozen fish from Gloucester to
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
—a trip that took eight days. In 1953, the company was the first to introduce a frozen ready-to-cook fish stick, which won the ''
Parents
A parent is a caregiver of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is the caretaker of a child (where "child" refers to offspring, not necessarily age). A ''biological parent'' is a person whose gamete resulted in a child, a male t ...
'' magazine Seal of Approval.
In 1957, Gorton-Pew Fisheries name was changed to Gorton's of Gloucester; in 1965, it became The Gorton Corporation, and it is now known as Gorton's. In 1968, Gorton's merged with General Mills, Inc., as a wholly owned subsidiary.
In May 1995,
Unilever
Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy drink, t ...
bought Gorton's from
General Mills
General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...
. In August 2001, Unilever sold Gorton's and BlueWater Seafoods to Nippon Suisan (USA), Inc., a subsidiary of
Nippon Suisan Kaisha
, is a marine products company based in Japan. It had annual revenues of US$5.1 billion in 2014.Until November 30, 2022, the company name will be . The company was established in 1911, and is a commercial fishing and marine product procurement ...
, Ltd., for $175 million in cash.
In late 2005 three environmentalist and animal-rights groups — the
Environmental Investigation Agency
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is an international NGO founded in 1984 in the United Kingdom by environmental activists Dave Currey, Jennifer Lonsdale and Allan Thornton. At present, it has offices in London and Washington, D.C. T ...
,
The Humane Society of the United States
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is an American nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scope. It uses strategies that are beyond the abilities of local organizations. ...
(HSUS) and
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
— began a campaign
"calling on Gorton’s to persuade its parent company, Nissui, to permanently bring an end to
the hunting of whales" in the
Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary
The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is an area of 50 million square kilometres surrounding the continent of Antarctica where the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has banned all types of commercial whaling. To date, the IWC has designated two ...
. In 2006, they announced, "our friends at seafood suppliers Gorton's, Sealord and parent company Nissui have withdrawn their active support for Japanese whaling."
References
External links
*
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
Gorton's on Protecting their ResourcesAmerica's Oldest Seaport, a short film about Gorton's and Gloucester
Whaling
Environmental Investigation Agency's report on Gorton's link to Japan's whale hunt.
{{Authority control
Food manufacturers of the United States
Seafood companies of the United States
Frozen food brands
Companies based in Gloucester, Massachusetts
Food and drink companies based in Massachusetts
Food and drink companies established in 1849
1849 establishments in Massachusetts
General Mills
Former Unilever brands
1968 mergers and acquisitions
1995 mergers and acquisitions
2001 mergers and acquisitions
American subsidiaries of foreign companies
Fish processing companies