Tag Archives: Anna Erickson
SWFL shrimp company pushing on despite seafood industry’s struggles
Shrimpers tell us it’s been an excellent year for pink shrimp, despite Southwest Florida’s struggling seafood industry. We checked in with Erickson & Jensen Seafood, the only shrimp company with boats in the water right now on Fort Myers Beach. With four boats in the water, E&J has been able to bring back about a fourth of their workers. “We’re desperately trying to sell as much as we can wherever we can,” said Grant Erickson, owner of Erickson & Jensen. “It’s very expensive. It’s very devastating. We’ve got problems at all ends in this business.” Video, >click to read< 14:14
Shrimp and Grit: Fighting to save the Fort Myers Beach shrimping fleet after Ian’s devastation
The Perseverance sunk. The Penny V was crushed. The Pleiades cracked in half. Aces & Eights had five holes. The Babe took a beating. The Capt. Ryan was boxed in. The Kayden Nicole tipped. Boats were scattered along the San Carlos Island waterfront in clusters. Six boats were flung into bushes, sea grape trees and dead mangroves not far from Trico Shrimp Company, the other major shrimp player on the waterfront. Ten floated maybe a quarter mile west, up into an RV park and a boatyard. Most of these boats were old before Ian arrived. They had been built to last one decade but stretched for five, held together with the glue of ingenuity, by owners and mechanics unwilling to concede to those who called it a dying industry. Right after Ian, just one boat was fit for sea. It was the F/V Malolo, the namesake of the boat Anna’s great-grandfather had first brought to Fort Myers. Photos, >click to read< 21:30
‘Big shrimping family’ in Florida left homeless by Hurricane Ian
Ricky Moran, a shrimper who worked and slept on the boat he captained out of Fort Myers Beach, lost both a secure livelihood and a safe place to live when Hurricane Ian roared into southwest Florida and smashed the trawler he calls home. “This ain’t my first rodeo but I ain’t never seen anything like this in my life. I never seen shrimp boats tossed like this,” Two companies, Erickson & Jensen Seafood and Trico Shrimp Co, own most of the boats at Fort Myers Beach, employing some 300 people, said Anna Erickson, whose family owns part of Erickson & Jensen. Only three of her company’s 11 boats are still afloat. >click to read< 09:17
Pink Gold – The next generation of shrimping comes into its own on San Carlos Island
They tie off and wait their turn to unload at the shrimp house owned by Erickson & Jensen, which has been on San Carlos Island since 1965. The shrimp house is a cavernous structure with plywood floors and an open ceiling. On this particular morning, an industrial fan in the corner blows hot air and a radio plays Savage Love by Jason Derulo. The cries of gulls and the clink of boat rigging can be heard from the wharf. Inside, the air smells of fresh shrimp, the scent of the sea. A small crew of day-pay workers mill around, smoking and looking at their phones. They are mostly men, their skin tanned and their faces lined from years spent near the water. At the center of the room stands Anna Erickson. >click to read< 09:19
Shrimp tales in economic swales
For the second time in two years, Trico Shrimp Company isn’t sailing off to Texas for the summer season. Even Erickson & Jensen, San Carlos Island’s other commercial shrimping company, stuck around an extra month before moving its operation to its Texas location in late July. It’s been more than a decade since shrimp have been plentiful just off the coast of Fort Myers Beach, but now both San Carlos Island shrimping companies are catching them by the boatful. “We’re catching phenomenal amounts right now,” said Grant Erickson, owner of Erickson & Jensen, earlier this summer. Earlier in July, one of his captains reportedly caught 150 baskets, or about 4,000 pounds, just off-shore. It’s a bit of a mystery why the shrimp have returned. click here to read the story 07:49
