Biloxi Freezing Company was founded by Lee P. Gutierrez, Sr. and Glenn Swetman in 1945. However, the company’s history goes back to its founder’s father, Henry J. Gutierrez, who began selling ice, coal and wood as far back as 1906. The Henry J. Gutierrez Company, located at Railroad and Bohn Street, provided these necessities to the neighborhoods and businesses using wagons. With changing times and innovations, the company became much more. Biloxi Freezing Company was a key supplier of ice, not only for residents, but for the very prolific seafood industry.
The freezing company would manufacture large blocks of ice that would be cut into cubes for refreshments, but also crushed and fed by tubes directly into the hulls of shrimping vessels to preserve the catch. Blocks of ice would be used in the transport of seafood by truck to ensure the product remained frozen until it reached its destination. As the only cold storage facility in the area at that time, the company would take in seafood to be blast frozen and stored for restaurants and seafood shops. All of Gutierrez’s sons, Lee Jr. “Pedro”, Henry “Duke”, Ramon “Ziggy”, and Frank, would participate in the family business by working in the icehouse and delivering the ice to boats.
Upon the retirement of Gutierrez in 1968, Lee P. Gutierrez, Jr. assumed the role of President and General Manager of Biloxi Freezing Company. The company operated until it was sold to International Seafood Traders in 1986. But this hiatus from the family business would not be long-lived, as “Pedro” and “Ziggy” would buy back the business in 1993. At that time, the processing plant had the capacity to blast freeze up to 61,000 pounds of shrimp per day. Thus, the Biloxi Freezing and Processing company was born.
As brothers Duke and Frank branched out in their own endeavors in the freezing and seafood processing, they maintained a vested interest in and partnerships with the company and helped in the innovative achievements that would carry the company forward in new times.
The facility is still located on Bohn Street and is the working cooperative efforts of Biloxi Freezing and M&M Shrimp Company, created by “Duke” Gutierrez. In current years, the company boasts the joining of the Mavar and Suarez/McLendon families. The Gutierrez freezing and seafood processing legacy lives on and is a vital contributor to the industry today.
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