Page 110 - South Mississippi Living - April, 2016

SPORTS & OUTDOOR bait with attitude
Fish caught using Killer Bee Bait.
Keeping seafood tradition alive
Killer Bee Bait
211 Caillavet St., Biloxi 228.374.0376
A third generation member of a Biloxi seafood industry family
is helping keep the industry alive with his growing company.
Following in the footsteps of his grandfather who began the Biloxi
Freezing Company in the 1940s, Brent Gutierrez founded Killer Bee Bait, Inc.
“My grandfather’s company was
also the first company to start freezing shrimp instead of the traditional canning method,” Guiterrez said. “After his death, the company was sold to Con Agra.”
Before starting Killer Bee Bait, Brent Guiterrez opened a business in 1986 processing shrimp. Later, he started getting requests for frozen bait from the local Walmart stores. Since his company was sourcing seafood internationally, he
felt it to be a good idea to network his multiple types of frozen bait nationally. Shrimp, cigar minnows, finger mullets and squid were his main exports to Walmart.
“Along the way, there were companies that could not keep up the supply that customers were demanding. A company called Natural Bait Brokers was one of the companies that couldn’t keep up, so I bought them out around 2002,” Guiterrez said. “This
purchase allowed me the majority of Walmart’s business in frozen bait.”
Before that time, Guiterrez had
been strictly saltwater bait, but the restrictions and limits of snapper and other breeds started to hurt his sales, mainly cigar minnows. He went from 500,000 pounds down to 100,000 pounds of cigar minnows. He was losing nearly 80 percent of his gross. Being the business man that he is, he focused on fresh water lures and bait.
“Most of the fresh water fishing is done with artificial bait. Some of my friends told me about a company in Ohio that had been in business for 50 years,” he said. “This company had become somewhat famous, the Erie Dearie Lure Company. In 2011 I bought the company and started selling fresh water lures, mainly for the Great Lakes, and then honed in on other lures for bass, catfish, crappie and brim.”
The company is now called Killer Bee Bait, Inc. with more than 160 employees in Nicaragua who manufacture
and distribute Killer Bee products internationally.
Guiterrez is expecting more great things in the future. His lures and baits are sold in Walmart stores, Academy, Bass Pro Shops, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Capella’s.
story by Mark Spain
photos by Mark Spain and courtesy of Killer Bee Bait
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