Tag Archives: Grant Erickson
One Year after Ian: Shrimping Industry
Grant Erickson’s family spent 70 years building their shrimping business on San Carlos Island. Hurricane Ian destroyed it in about 12 hours. “Devastating. We’ve never been damaged so bad,” he recalled. “You come back to that, and you’re stunned. You’re in shock. You don’t even know where to start. It’s too much all at once.” It’s just hard to put in words the last year,” Jesse Clapham, the fleet manager for Erickson and Jensen Seafood. “We had a meeting, and everybody said, ‘Do we want to give up and go home, or do we want to put it back together?’ And everybody unanimously said, ‘Put it back together,’” he recalled. But doing so would be a Herculean challenge. Photo, Video, >>click to read<< 10:57
Southwest Florida’s shrimping industry struggles to stay afloat after hurricane devastation
Erickson & Jensen Seafood now have five of their shrimp boats back in the water, but their operations are far from normal since Hurricane Ian. “We had a nice ongoing business and we were very secure,” Grant Erickson said referring to his 75-year-old business. “Been doing this for a long, long time. And then all of a sudden in a 12-hour period, the storm just took us completely out of what we were doing.” Before Hurricane Ian, Erickson and Jensen had 11 ships bringing in tons of shrimp. From rebuilding the docks and their buildings, it’s been difficult to find the money. Video, >click to read< 13:27
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
Coronavirus: Fishing markets impacted by new restaurant guidelines and shifting markets
One of the owners of ‘Erickson and Jensen’ says these changes have not impacted the prices of their shrimp, but it has impacted their actual sales. ‘Erickson and Jensen’ has been a family-run shrimp business since the 1950s. “Well we’ve been doing this for a long time, my family is multi-generational, we’ve always been fisherman,” said Grant Erickson.,, While they’ve seen their sales to restaurants go down, they have seen their sales to markets like Publix go up. “We can see the change happening in that there is a heavier demand in retail than in the restaurant area,” said Erickson. >click to read< 10:03
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
