Firstly, let’s round off 2017! It was a great year for us culminating in a smashing Christmas. We sent out a record number of lobsters, smoked salmon and crabs. If you had a Christmas order from us, we hope it made your festive period special!
We have a few new faces around the office, perhaps you have even spoken to some of them on the phone? We were delighted to welcome Liam, Liz, Gracjan and Damian to the team. We also brought on a number of new and exciting products such as 70% Irish battered scampi, Japanese cut yellowtail kingfish and hot smoked potted trout to name a few.
We were pleased to have extended Fish Palace by breaking through into the neighbouring building. We added another Frozen cold room to store many more exciting fishy delights.
Alistair standing with the our new cold store.
Last year we had to search long and hard to find a few highly demanded fish. The wild salmon season in Scotland and the North of England was near non-existent. We had almost written it off when we caught word of some prime wild Norwegian fish that had been squirrelled away in France. After a quick trip over the channel to check they were the real deal we had an order in. Shortly after Gracjan was put to work cutting and prepping the fish for your Christmas orders. The second great challenge for us was Kingklip. Towards the end of 2016 our supply of kingklip was becoming restricted, no one seemed to be importing it into the UK. Due to high demand, we got our detective hats on and went in search of the much loved deep sea pink fish. A few breadcrumbs drew us to New Zealand where they fish for MASSIVE kingklip off the South West coast. Our next problem was getting it over here… luckily a nice trader from Billingsgate fish market allowed us a guest spot on his frozen container being shipped from New Zealand.
Jeremy holding a box of frozen Kingklip tails
So…what’s happening this year?
New and exciting species of fish and seafood
Yellowtail Kingfish: Farmed in the warm Southern waters of Australia these kingfish are real specimens. We are now selling whole Japanese cut fillets which is a new style for us. You will get the collar and the lower fin still attached to the yellowtail fillet. In Japanese cuisine, they hold these areas of the kingfish in high regard.
Yellowtail kingfish side
Blue abalone (Paua – the maori name): These stunning electric blue abalones are raised in the north of New Zealand from the pristine clear waters of Bream Bay. The farm recently acquired Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification. The farm is land based with an intelligent sea water recirculation system.
Blue abalone
New Zealand Snapper: A favourite of Jeremy’s. Don’t let the name fool you, the NZ snapper is more closely related to a sea bream rather than an Asian or American red snapper. Their flesh is white and meaty when cooked and goes great with lime, garlic and chilli.
Whole New Zealand snapper
Let’s get saucy: We are very excited to be offering a trio of Cheeky Boy sauces. Kaye – The Founder of Cheeky Boy dropped in to see us and did a sauce tasting. We were blown away. He makes the sauces using only natural ingredients and all the sauces are spiced up with fresh ginger and a selection of other awesome ingredients. We recommend buying the trio for £7.70 to see which one is your favourite.
Cheeky boy sauces
History of The Fish Society
2018 is The Fish Society’s 25th birthday. Alistair set the company up as ‘Serious About Fish’ in 1993. We now have employees who were born after 1993! We will be putting together a little booklet showcasing the history of the company. In addition to this booklet, we are hoping to host a fishy celebratory lunch, serving the best seafood the world has to offer.
An early order from the 90s
New Website
This is our most exciting project to be launched this year. We have been working very hard to scrutinise our current website and work out what our customers would like to see on a new and updated site. We are hoping to have the site live before Easter. One of the areas we are focussing on is the origin and specification of our fish. The most asked questions are; where is the fish from? Is it wild or farmed? Is it cooked? Etc. Each fillet, steak and fish is going to have an information key that will help you build a picture of where each fish came from and how you should treat it. We are very excited to get the site launched and hope you will give us some feedback when we do so.
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