SeaBear Company, a leading national purveyor of smoked salmon and other specialty seafood, has acquired 100% of GD Seafoods, which does business under the Gerard & Dominique brand. Both are privately held companies; terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

SeaBear and Gerard & Dominique are both Northwest-based seafood brands, which compete in the category's premier, specialty niche. With this acquisition, the combined company enjoys the leverage of a broad line of high quality products, two highly-respected consumer brands, and strength across multiple distribution channels, positioning it for significant growth in the high-end niche of the seafood business.

"Both the SeaBear and Gerard & Dominique brands are built on premium product quality, specialty niche marketing, and a deep passion for customer service," says Mike Mondello, president & CEO of SeaBear Company. "This strong alignment of our core beliefs is what got us both interested in the potential of joining forces."

While both companies approach the business from similar philosophies, each brings to this new partnership core strengths that promise to make each brand even better. "We are thrilled to be joining the SeaBear team, as their depth in sales and marketing will allow us to serve our existing customers even better, and help us expand to reach new markets as well," says Dominique Place, president of G&D. "And, we are excited to bring to SeaBear an extensive line of new products, strong recipe development capabilities and strengths in specialty product production."

Perhaps the most significant complementary area of this partnership is in channels of distribution. SeaBear brings a long-standing leadership in direct-to-consumer distribution, marketed via catalog and web. G&D has a strong foodservice business serving a host of high-end restaurants and hotels across the U.S., and other countries as well. Both brands have strong relationships with premier retailers such as Whole Foods and QFC, among others.

Dominique and wife ChouChou, who together were sole owners of G&D, will remain with the company, as President and Vice President of Sales, respectively. "Dominique and ChouChou are the heart and soul of this brand, and we are thrilled they will be part of our team," according to Mondello. "By leveraging some of the systems we already have in place we hope to help them spend even more of their time focused on what they are particularly great at: creating and producing superior products and serving their customers with the passion and care of a family-owned business."

The SeaBear brand will continue to operate out of its Anacortes, Washington facility. The Gerard & Dominique brand, with its 20 employees, will continue to operate out of its Woodinville, Washington facility.

About SeaBear

With this transaction, SeaBear Company now owns and manages three premier specialty niche consumer brands: SeaBear Seafood (http://www.seabear.com), Gerard & Dominique Seafood, and Made In Washington stores (http://www.madeinwashington.com), which focuses on artisan gifts. Started in 1957 by an Anacortes fisherman, today SeaBear is a leader nationally in direct-to-consumer (web and catalog) seafood, wholesale sales of specialty gift box smoked salmon, and regional gift retailing through five Puget Sound area Made In Washington retail gift stores.

About Gerard & Dominique

Gerard & Dominique Smoked Salmon (http://www.gdseafoods.com) is the salmon of choice for many prestigious hotels, elegant restaurants and specialty markets around the world. Customers include: The Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle, The Pierre in New-York, the Heathman in Portland; Morton's of Chicago chain of restaurants (from all the US restaurants to Hong-Kong, Macau, Singapore); Select Fish / Whole Foods Markets, The Fresh Fish Co. in San Francisco; cruise lines in Miami and Los Angeles; Northwest & KLM Airlines; Metropolitan Markets, Town and Country / Central markets and QFC, among many others. Made with only the freshest natural ingredients, Gerard & Dominique products are carefully hand-filleted and smoked by owner Dominique Place according to old-world traditions. G&D began when Chefs Gerard and Dominique, who owned French restaurants Gerard Relais de Lyon in Bothell and Dominique's Place in Seattle, respectively, could not find a smoked salmon that met their high standards, so they created one. In 1990 G&D Superior Food Products was founded, based in a 2,000 square foot facility in Kenmore. The 10,000 square foot Woodinville production facility was built in 1997. Gerard retired in 1998, with Dominique and wife ChouChou taking over 100% of the business.

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