This Charlotte delivery service brings the coast to your kitchen during coronavirus
The last time you bought seafood, did you know where it came from? Did you know the boat it was caught on? Did you know the name of the captain?
Probably not, right?
Charlotte-based seafood supplier Catch On Seafood wants to change that. Originally a home delivery service with a farmers market presence, Catch on Seafood has returned with gusto to that form after closing up shop on Hawthorne Lane as a result of Gold Line construction.
“We started looking at other spaces after closing up,” owner and chief fishmonger Sean Schussler said. “At that time, we were in this ‘real estate boom.’ With that, retail got so expensive. … I thought, ‘I could just do this as delivery.’”
And with that, Catch On Seafood returned to its delivery service roots. But how does it work?
Customers who are signed up for Catch On Seafood’s list receive emails on Mondays and Thursdays that include current offerings and a link to order and pay online.
Orders are then delivered to customers’ doorsteps the following day — usually Tuesdays for Monday orders, and Friday for Thursday orders, although heavy demand since stay-at-home orders began to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has shaken up Catch On’s schedule a bit.
Schussler said Catch on Seafood has hundreds of customers, and deliveries are growing. News about Catch on Seafood has been primarily through word-of-mouth, with customers posting on Next Door and on community Facebook pages. (Schussler said Yelp doesn’t allow for Catch on Seafood to have a page because it doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar site anymore.)
The high demand at a time when COVID-19 restrictions have ravaged the food industry has meant some ups and downs for the company, along with temporary shortages. One recent email to customers said, “A lot of clients are asking us when we are going to be able to get fresh seafood again. The answer is simple. We don’t know. Many of the fish houses that we buy from are shutting down. The big business for them are restaurants and with the closures, they essentially have no customers to sell to.”
Its attention to sourcing has helped, however. Catch on Seafood partners with Wicked Inlet, a seafood company based out of Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Up to 10 boats can fish solely for the Charlotte business.
“Having our own boats, we can tell the restaurants or the chefs the name of the captain and the name of the boat they got their fish from,” Schussler said. “All of our captains have satellite phones. When they’re on the way back, they can tell us what they have, and we can send a blast out to people. No one else can do that.”
Schussler’s heightened focus on finding great seafood has paid off. He has snatched up fresh Alaskan salmon. He’s sourced fish from Honolulu and Key Largo. He said Catch on Seafood is even one of the first in the area to get soft-shell crabs, a beloved sign of spring.
Catch on Seafood’s stand-out offerings include its Faroe Islands salmon and its popular fish taco kit. For the taco kit, customers choose from Mahi-Mahi or shrimp to receive in their delivery, which also includes corn tortillas and avocados from Las Lupitas, salsa from Three Amigos and taco seasoning from Savory Spice.
Schussler’s ambitions for Catch on Seafood are growing, from working with Charlotte-area restaurants and supplies to offering other types of proteins, such as Joyce Farms chicken and Angus beef. He is also planning to offer nationwide Catch on Seafood deliveries by this summer.
“We’re just a unique concept,” Schussler said. “But at the same time, people have been catching fish for thousands of years. … We just figured out how to bring the coast to you.”
Catch on Seafood
Instagram: @catchonseafood
