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Inventory loss inevitable, regrettable, in seafood business
“This business is extremely difficult. With crabs, they are not only perishable, they are alive. I’ve got to sell it before it dies,” he said. “I’ve lost many hours of sleep because of that. To be in this business, you have to accept a great loss of product or go into another business.” Still, the losses take their toll on the Maryland native who so respects the Chesapeake Bay and the watermen who work it that he immortalized three of them – James Sullivan and Earl Sullivan of Middle River and Bill Gunther of Perryman – in a photographic mural when he redecorated the Fallston location. Asked why he chose those three men, the latter two of whom have passed, he said, “They epitomize what a waterman should be. They cull a good crab. They care for the Bay and don’t want to rape its resources, so it will provide for them for years to come.” The mural also includes photos of the Bay, ladies picking crab and Anderson’s first crab venture, a refrigerated truck “parked where Cook’s Motors is now” a truck that remains next to the Fallston store as a monument of sorts to where he got his start. About his inventory losses, he added, “I hate to see the resource lost, all the labor that goes into getting the product to the store lost. The watermen who catch it, the drivers who drive them in and the labor here sorting and sizing them.” Anderson knows his crab. “I am totally dedicated to local watermen and the local seafood processors on the Eastern Shore. The product is more expensive, especially crab meat, but as a native Marylander, I want to support other native Marylanders,” he said. “A lot of crab houses buy Louisiana crab because they are a bigger crab, but I think the Maryland crab is best. It’s a sweeter crab.” Anderson is quick to point out, however, that he, too, buys crab from the Gulf Coast. “I have to buy them all year to keep my foot in the door in winter,” he said. “Here, the season is April-November. There, it’s year-round.” Anderson and his wife, Lisa, have six children and everyone works in the family business but the youngest, who is 9. In fact, Lisa keeps the books and Elizabeth, 26, runs the Fallston store. “I can’t be everywhere at once,” he said. “It’s critical to my business that the children are there. We would not be as successful as we are without them. I've had a few hard-working, loyal employees who have helped with our success, as well." Richard opened The Seafood Stop’s truck roadside operation in 1989 to supplement his teaching income. By 1994, Elizabeth, then 12, was right there with him, answering the phone, making bags and talking to customers. “The business just blew up after the third or fourth year,” Anderson said. “We were selling shrimp, live lobsters, crab meat, oysters, soft crab – I had three trucks instead of just one to hold everything. When I started, it was from Memorial Day until Labor Day. Then, with oyster season, it because April through October. Then, to sell the shrimp and lobster, it became April through New Year’s Eve.” In 1998, when a new principal at Cockeysville Middle School decided to move him from teaching eighth grade to teaching sixth grade, Anderson took it as a sign. “I was burning out. I knew it had to be one or the other. Teaching has become so political, putting so many other responsibilities on teachers besides teaching children. It was time to get out,” he said. The Fallston location, with Charles Gibby as a minority partner, opened in 2000. Anderson then opened Richard’s Fish & Crabs in 2006. As for the future, Anderson thinks he might like to open a sit down restaurant, in response to customers who like the to-go meals he serves in Fallston.
Photo caption: Elizabeth and Richard Anderson have been a father-daughter team since 1994. |
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Richard Anderson said it took 15 of the 20 years he has been in the seafood business to accept in inevitability of inventory losses. Anderson owns and operates 