Drago's Shrimp Meal Expands to 20 Markets as Walmart Talks Advance

Drago's Seafood Restaurant's frozen barbecue shrimp meal is now stocked in at least 20 supermarkets, including Associated Grocers locations, and Walmart has approached the company about carrying it, owner Tommy Cvitanovich said. Rouses stores sold more than 2,000 units of the meal since its May debut, according to Jordan Clark, seafood director at Rouses.

The Metairie-based company began developing the frozen meal earlier this year with Prime Shrimp, a ready-to-eat shrimp brand launched in 2018 by Harahan-based manufacturer Laitram. Prime Shrimp packaged the product, and Drago's distributes pallets to grocery warehouses. Cvitanovich said the recipe and ingredients were developed with dietitians, and Gulf Coast shrimp for the meal comes from the same Louisiana suppliers that serve the restaurant's six locations in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The company is developing an alfredo shrimp meal and a frozen jambalaya dish to join the lineup, which also includes bottles of butter garlic sauce. Rouses has sold the sauce in all 76 of its stores across Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi for nearly a decade, moving about 60,000 units annually, a spokesperson said. Four years ago, Drago's pitched the sauce to Walmart, which began carrying it in Louisiana stores and some Gulf Coast locations.

"We went back and forth with Prime Shrimp. We could have gone with a less expensive item, a smaller shrimp, less shrimp, less sauce, all of those things," Cvitanovich said. "At the end of the day, we said, no, we want this to be the exact same thing that somebody's going to get in our restaurant."

David Henkes, senior principal and head of strategic partnerships at Technomic, an advisory firm covering the restaurant and food industry, said retail sales can far outpace restaurant revenue. "The retail opportunity, done right, is exponentially bigger than if you're a $5 (million), $10 million restaurant," Henkes said. "You could see retail products like this grow into potentially $100 million."

Henkes also cautioned that frozen seafood is difficult to execute. "The make-or-break for Drago's is the quality and authenticity of the product in relation to the restaurant," he said. "It needs to deliver against expectations. Frozen seafood is tough."

Retail products account for less than 5% of Drago's revenue, Cvitanovich said, adding that butter garlic sauce sales are growing in double digits year over year. Talks with Walmart about the frozen shrimp meal are ongoing.