Home delivery services are all the rage, ranging from prepared meal kits to online grocery orders. Advances in warehousing, logistics, and most importantly, data analytics have enabled these services to greatly enhance access. But while most foods and meals are readily amenable to these new processes, fresh fish delivery has remained a challenge. Food safety issues and the ability to get fresh fish from sea to table naturally pose some difficulties. But this appears to be changing as companies offering fresh fish online ordering are increasing.
The opportunities to receive a variety of fresh fish delivery options are much more common today than in years before. The ability to order fresh fish online is naturally appealing to restaurants, caterers, and chefs. But with recent changes in food delivery systems, household consumers are increasingly demanding these offerings as well. However, achieving high-quality fresh fish delivery is harder than you might think. It’s one of the main reasons that this reflects one of the last pieces of the food delivery puzzle.
Challenges to Fresh Fish Delivery
When it comes to ordering fresh fish online, a natural barrier involves getting the product from docks to consumers’ homes. Prior systems for selecting, packaging, and shipping fish to consumers as well as restaurants were fraught with delays. As a result, more than 85 percent of all seafood consumed in the U.S. has been frozen at some point. Thus, a heightened need for efficiency and enhanced logistics was necessary to realize improvements in fresh fish delivery.
Of course, logistics is not the only issue. Transparency and accuracy about the fish have also been an issue. In fact, there have been cases of mislabeling a fifth of all fish products, and more than half of these pose potential safety concerns. Not knowing when and where fish were caught contribute to these issues. Understandably, these shortcomings within the industry help explain why fresh fish delivery has been difficult.
Fresh Fish Online through Technological Innovation
In numerous industries and sectors, data analytics and artificial intelligence are making tremendous impacts. And Fulton Fish Market, located in the Bronx, is now also using this to their advantage. As the second-largest fish market in the world, FultonFishMarket.com now offers fresh fish delivery anywhere in the U.S. How did they achieve such a feat? State-of-the-art warehousing and logistics combined with a human-interfaced data analytics system. With over 200 years in the wholesale fish market business, FultonFishMarket.com is changing the face of fresh fish delivery.
In an effort to address the accuracy of fresh fish delivery orders, FultonFishMarket.com utilizes Robert DiGregorio’s 47-year experience in the industry. A data analytics program provides DiGregorio with suggestions from which vendor to fulfill a specific fresh fish online order. But DiGregorio has the option to use that recommendation or not. If not, the learning system then makes inquiries to help understand where the recommendation might have been wrong. The hope is that such systems can enhance the accuracy as well as order fulfillment over time for fresh fish delivery.
The Expanding Fresh Fish Online Ordering Business
At this time, FultonFishMarket.com is one of the few fresh fish delivery systems that offer unfrozen product selections. Giovanni’s Fish Market and Galley, located in Morro Bay, California, also does the same. Giovanni’s offers over 100 seafood items and ships within 24 hours of ordering to anywhere in the U.S. And a few others, such as Browne Trading, does the same commercially for restaurants and catering businesses. But FultonFishMarket.com is the only one utilizing a learning system to advance its quality of services to date.
The previously mentioned businesses are boldly advancing the fresh fish delivery market. But others are also doing the same by ensuring greater transparency for consumers. For example, Sizzlefish, Sea to Table, and Harbour Trading all now offer tracking information about fresh fish online orders. This includes methods of catch, landing docks, and even the captain and crew of the particular vessel. All of these efforts to are address the existing barriers that currently limit quality fresh fish delivery to consumers today.
Certainly, the fresh fish delivery sector has challenges that other food sectors do not have. And this has hindered the ability for consumers to enjoy fresh fish online ordering in the past. But bold businesses are introducing new technologies that are improving safety concerns, transparency issues, and delivery systems. It, therefore, appears that this holdout in the direct-to-consumer food delivery ecosystem is about to fall in line as well.
