It all started in Sicily, where the Scola family originated from, both on the docks lumping boats and on the boats as fisherman. When Tito Anthony Scola came overseas to America and continued lumping boats on the old Boston Fish Pier, his son - Paul P. Scola - soon followed his footsteps and got a working permit at age 15 to carry on the Italian family tradition.

 

Paul eventually partnered up with Roland Harrington and in 1972 founded the widely respected R&P Seafood/Shellfish, right on the old Boston Fish Pier. R&P primarily specialized in groundfish, sourcing haddock and cod from Nova Scotia, Maine, and Chatham. It wasn't long before brothers Michael, Paul, and Steven Scola took the reins of R&P. Then, in 1999, they started adding divisions in pursuit to eventually become the one-stop-shop we (BST) are today. This goal led to us moving out of our old building in 2001, and into a brand new state-of-the-art facility down the road on Seafood Way, doubling our size in space. 

 

In 2003, Michael Scola and (retired) Tim Malley founded Boston Sword & Tuna. At this point, we began putting together our team of well-rounded seafood professionals who brought what was needed to the table in order for us to not only survive in this industry, but thrive. Mike Machado, for instance, one of our lead buyers, spent a decade fishing the Grand Banks before dropping anchor with BST. Likewise, Bobby Blakie – our GM – grew up on the Boston Fish Pier. We even have a former five-star chef on our diverse team, Peter Safner.

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As the years passed, we continued to grow, continued to extend our product line, and then in 2007 officially merged R&P and BST under Boston Sword & Tuna. Our continued success ultimately led to Larry Dore joining us in 2012. Larry is well respected in the New England seafood industry, and his knowledge of the fillet business made our 2012 expansion feel natural. With this in place we then purchased more space, adding ten more doors for shipping, and again doubled the size of our facility. This allowed us to expand our operations, adding a full range of fillets to our product line, as well as prepared foods.

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We pride ourselves on being the one-stop-shop we originally set out to be in 2003. Knowing which boats to buy from, which boats to not buy from, and establishing long-lasting relationships enables us to consistently source the best quality products on the market both locally and around the world. This is why Boston Sword & Tuna has quickly grown to become one of the largest and most reliable seafood distributors in the United States.