Larry’s Catch says it is expanding its operations into Western Canada with the opening of a new warehouse in Vancouver, establishing a dedicated West Coast hub to support the company’s rapid growth.
It said the new facility will allow the brand to strengthen its delivery network, lower shipping costs and make its premium, wild-caught Canadian seafood more accessible to customers across British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
“This new warehouse is a major milestone for Larry’s Catch and a reflection of how quickly Canadians are embracing a better way to enjoy seafood,” said Glen Creaser, co-founder of Larry’s Catch. “Expanding into Western Canada allows us to get closer to our customers, improve the delivery experience and make incredible Canadian seafood accessible to more communities.
“For us, this is about much more than opening another warehouse; it’s about continuing to build the infrastructure needed to connect Canadians with the seafood being harvested in their own country, no matter where they live.”
The company said the Vancouver warehouse marks a major milestone in its progress from a small Canadian start-up to a national seafood brand. What began with co-founder Creaser asking his fisherman father, Larry, to send seafood from their home province of Nova Scotia to Ontario has grown into a Canada-wide business serving thousands of customers from coast to coast.
Having launched in 2024, Larry’s Catch shipped just 264 orders in its first year and has since grown to an annualized pace of more than 30,000 orders, reflecting the rapidly growing demand for its premium, wild-caught Canadian seafood.
The company was founded by Creaser, James Quinn and Javier Mejorada. Larry’s Catch now delivers Canada-wide, across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island.
In an interview with Retail Insider, Creaser spoke about the latest developments with the company.
What prompted Larry’s Catch to open a dedicated warehouse in Vancouver at this stage of the company’s growth, and what investment did the company make in the facility?
We already had the ability to ship to customers in Western Canada, but opening a dedicated Vancouver warehouse allowed us to dramatically improve the experience. It opened up many more postal codes, reduced transit times, made deliveries more reliable, and lowered our shipping costs enough that we could offer free shipping on orders over $150 across much more of the region.
That also gave us the confidence to invest more heavily in growing our customer base in Western Canada. We already knew there was demand there, but it made much more sense to focus our marketing efforts once we could offer customers a shipping experience that matched the quality of the product.
The biggest investment for us was the upfront inventory required to properly stock the warehouse from day one. We wanted customers in the West to have access to the same breadth of Canadian seafood that our customers had come to expect.
How much do you expect the Vancouver warehouse to reduce shipping costs and delivery times for customers in Western Canada, and how many additional postal codes will the company be able to serve as a result?
The difference has been significant. We can now offer free shipping across far more of Western Canada, and for customers whose orders fall below our free-shipping threshold, shipping costs have fallen to less than 25% of what they could have been before we opened the Vancouver warehouse.
Transit times are also much shorter and more predictable because products are starting their journey much closer to the customer.
We don’t have an exact count of the additional postal codes, but one of the biggest benefits has been our ability to reach more rural and underserved communities. Today, we’re able to serve postal codes representing more than 95% of the population in the regions we operate in.
Larry’s Catch has grown from 264 orders in its first year to an annualized pace of more than 30,000 orders — what have been the biggest drivers of that growth, and what are your current sales or order-growth targets?
Word of mouth and referrals have been a huge part of our growth. We do our best to show every customer that we genuinely care about their experience, whether that’s the quality of the seafood, how their order arrives, or how we respond when something goes wrong. When customers trust you enough to recommend you to their friends and family, that compounds very quickly.
We had also built a meaningful audience in Western Canada before opening the warehouse, so the expansion gave us an opportunity to better serve demand that was already there and accelerate organic growth and word of mouth in the region.
Our focus isn’t simply on hitting an arbitrary order number. We want to keep growing quickly, but only as long as the customer experience grows with us. That’s ultimately what has gotten us this far.
How does the company plan to build its customer base in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and are you looking at additional warehouses, retail partnerships or other distribution options as the business expands?
We’re going to let our customers help determine what comes next.
One of the things we’ve tried to do since the beginning is listen to customers more than we listen to ourselves. We constantly gather feedback and look at what people are asking us for. Do they want to see Larry’s Catch on retail shelves? Do they want access to more Canadian species and products from suppliers across the country? Are there new regions where customers are asking us to deliver?
Those answers will shape how we expand. We’re open to additional warehouses, retail partnerships and other distribution models, but we want each move to solve a real customer need rather than expanding simply for the sake of expansion.
What does the Vancouver expansion mean for Larry’s Catch’s longer-term strategy, particularly its goal of building a national seafood brand and increasing the number of Canadians who buy Canadian wild-caught seafood directly from the company?
For us, it all comes down to access.
A lot of our customers find Larry’s Catch because they want high-quality, wild Canadian seafood but simply haven’t been able to find it where they live. Canada produces some of the best seafood in the world, yet for many Canadians it can still be surprisingly difficult to buy.
Building a national seafood brand means removing those barriers. A major part of that is making shipping more affordable, faster and more reliable, while continuing to expand the range of Canadian seafood we can offer.
The Vancouver warehouse is another step toward making great Canadian seafood accessible to more Canadians, regardless of whether they live in a major city or a smaller community.
More from Retail Insider:
- Larry’s Catch draws three offers on CBC’s Dragons’ Den
- Larry’s Catch brings Canadian seafood direct to doors across 9 provinces
