After four decades, San Diego’s premier seafood supplier, Catalina Offshore Products, located at 5202 Lovelock Street, has been sold to new owners.
Founder Dave Rudie established the company in 1977 exclusively as a sea urchin wholesaler in domestic sales and exports to Asia. Eventually, the business expanded to a wholesale division, online store, and walk-in fish market, not to mention becoming one of the largest buyers of local seafood in San Diego. Now, Catalina Offshore Products has been purchased by Beish Holdings, a woman and minority-owned company led by Kathy and Dave Strangman and cattle rancher Jose Chacon, according to SanDiegoVille.
“I’ve worked many years to build Catalina Offshore Products into the strong, successful, and revered company it is today and am looking forward to the next chapter of my life,” Rudie tells SanDiegoVille. “In considering Catalina’s future without me, the goal has been to sell to a like-minded, industry-experienced successor who will continue my company’s legacy and build upon its stellar reputation.”
The Strangmans’ children, Brittany and Tanner, along with Chacon, will manage the establishment. The two second-generation fishmongers were born into the seafood industry and have worked at their parents’ company, San Diego Seafood, since they were old enough to do so. Rudie, on the other hand, is not retiring from the industry, but just the day-to-day operations, and hopes to return to his true passion, searching for sea urchins.
“Opportunities like this are truly once in a lifetime, and after meeting with Dave Rudie, we knew we were made for this,” Brittany Strangman said. “Between my family’s combined 80 years in the seafood industry and Jose’s experience in the beef industry, we’re excited to join forces, build upon what has made Catalina the incredible company it is today, and carry Dave’s legacy well into the future.”
