Continued Expansion
As sales and distribution continued to expand so did the company’s production capacity. In response, Rastelli moved to a 50,000-sq.-ft. processing plant in Swedesboro, New Jersey, in 2003, which is the location of the corporate headquarters today. By the end of 2003, sales reached $100 million.
“We’ve been fortunate to remain on a path of growth throughout some of the more difficult financial times in our market,” Ray Jr. says. “Sometimes that growth has been slow and steady and at times it has seemed exponential.”
The next chapter of the Rastelli expansion came with a foray into the seafood business. In 2006, Rastelli acquired Black Tiger Seafood and its 25,000-sq.-ft. plant in Egg Harbor, New Jersey. The company processed finfish and shellfish from around the world at the Egg Harbor location and transformed what started as a $5 million operation into a $30 to $40 million operation, which was renamed Rastelli Seafood soon after. The seafood operation – now processing tuna, salmon, sea bass, lobster, shrimp, scallops and more – has been relocated to the Swedesboro headquarters following the plant’s recent expansion.
In 2009, Rastelli started its own organic beef program, which now makes up $80 to $90 million of its annual sales. The Pure Land America brand is an antibiotic-, hormone-, GMO-free line of steaks which includes a line of source-verified Angus beef products. The Pure Land brand has since expanded to include Duroc pork products. Today, 20 to 30 organic meat products are distributed under the Pure Land label nationwide.
Rastelli also produces and merchandises a number of packaged frozen meat and seafood products including its Rastelli Craft Burgers. The burger line includes frozen Angus, Angus short rib and organic grass-fed beef burgers as well as turkey and salmon burgers.
Alongside its national foodservice distribution, Rastelli saw an opportunity to expand in the growing e-commerce segment. Rastelli-At-Home, a direct-to-consumer food delivery service, started in 2008 with around 500 online orders. In January 2010, Rastelli-At-Home evolved into the business now known as Rastelli Direct, which contributes 15 percent of Rastelli Foods Group’s total annual sales.
In order to compete with established mail-order companies such as Omaha Steaks, part of Rastelli Direct’s marketing and distribution strategy has been partnering with online distribution networks like QVC. The company has been on the program more than 50 times featuring a variety of its products as well as members of the Rastelli team, often Ray Jr., and it’s been hugely successful.
“It [QVC] is our fastest-growing and highest-volume outlet for direct-to-consumer sales,” Ray Jr. says. In the first quarter of 2016, Rastelli shipped out more than 100,000 QVC orders.
