ASPA Member Feature: Seabrook Seafood, Inc.

Seabrook Seafood, Inc. is based in Kemah, Texas, a beautiful waterfront city located about 20 miles south of Houston. The name Kemah is an Indian word that means “wind in my face” — a fitting description for the steadfast breeze that has guided shrimpers to reap the bountiful harvest Galveston Bay has provided for centuries.

Brothers Tom Hults, president, and Arthur Hults, controller, grew up in Texas and have worked in the seafood industry all their lives, but the lineage of the company goes back to the 1930s in Pascagoula, Mississippi. When their grandfather, Archie Arthur Hults, retired from the paper mill, he was eager to kick up his recreational fishing habit to more full-time status. Little did he realize his passion for fishing would pave the way for his son and grandsons to embrace seafood as a way of life.

“He caught more fish than he could handle, so he would take them over to the docks that would buy fish off the fishermen,” Tom says. “At some point, he decided it was a good thing to get into that business. He made good money off the fish he caught, opened his own dock, a little retail store and a restaurant came after that.”

Tom and Arthur’s grandmother ran the restaurant part of the business, and the demand for her signature favorite was well known in the community: “She was really good at cooking gumbo,” Tom says. “The running joke I always heard was ‘it was a very special recipe — anything that would hold still long enough, she would put it in the pot!’”

Arthur remembers his grandfather as an “easygoing” man who loved his pipe, always had a smile on his face, and never let any obstacle stand in the way of achieving a goal, especially after losing his right hand in a sawmill accident when he was a teenager.

“One thing about Grandpa is he could do anything,” Arthur says. “That accident did not handicap him in the least, and he went on to be a master machinist.”

Visit Seabrook Seafood, Inc.’s processor page for more information!