Stavis Seafoods, a vertically integrated importer and manufacturer of value-added frozen and fresh seafood products, has received approval from the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) to develop Parcel 5 of the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park on the South Boston waterfront. Stavis teamed with Pilot Development Partners to seek the award for the Fid
Kennedy Avenue parcel after the initial developer missed a construction deadline and the land was put out for rebid by Massport.
Pilot Development plans to construct buildings consisting of 140,000 square feet of space with Stavis Seafoods as a primary tenant. The complex will focus on seafood processing and could include trucking and shipping uses.
“We are incredibly enthusiastic about this proposal and thankful for Massport’s clear commitment to keeping the seafood industry in Boston,” said Chuck Marble, chief executive officer of Stavis. “This new facility will allow us to consolidate all our operations into one building, creating efficiencies and enhancing our customer service capabilities.”
Pilot Development Partners, which has a number of projects in the waterfront area, is a real estate consulting and management firm that provides advice, management and an array of skills regarding building, land, investment and ownership opportunities. Its clients include investors, industrial/R&D companies, retailers, apartment owners and non-profit organizations.
New Players Join Team
Meanwhile, on December 4 Stavis announced that seafood industry veterans Mohamed Fakira and Allison Roderick will serve as the company’s new vice president of operations and director of quality, respectively. Fakira will be charged with optimizing and maximizing productivity and efficiencies at all of the company’s facilities, while creating a strategic organizational plan for the state-of-the-art facility to be developed on the South Boston waterfront.
Roderick will be responsible for ensuring the overall quality, safety and consistency of Stavis Seafoods’ numerous product offerings while implementing and auditing processes and traceability controls at all locations.
“The addition of Mohamed and Allison comes at important time in our growth,” said CEO Chuck Marble. “Stavis recently expanded to include company-owned vessels and processing plants around the world. As we incorporate and optimize these vertically integrated capabilities, the operations and quality teams will both play an essential role in ensuring we maintain our high standards of customer service and achieve our organizational and quality objectives.”
Fakira has more than 20 years of strategic and factory management experience that includes serving as plant manager for Bonamar Corporation, a seafood importer and distributor based in Miami, as well as overseeing the Fort Lauderdale, Florida facility for Slade Gorton, a frozen and fresh seafood distributor headquartered in Boston. He also has experience as a plant manager as Ian’s Natural Foods in Framingham, Massachusetts.
Roderick has more than 18 years of FSQA experience in seafood and holds a MS degree in food safety from Michigan State University. Her previous jobs include serving as the director of microbiology and quality assurance at Monogram Foods LLC, a value-added meat, snack and appetizer manufacturer, as well as holding numerous management positions in the quality department at Gorton’s Incorporated, a frozen seafood manufacturer headquartered in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Her most recent position at Gorton’s was quality assurance manager of microbiology and food safety.
