Something awesome happened for us last week and it left us feeling incredibly grateful for all the hardworking men and women that make what we do at E-Fish possible.
The absolute hustle that goes into catching the product, preparing it for shipment, and sending it out to our customers is no small feat, and our suppliers and fishermen and women do it every single week. The grind is easy to forget or overlook when the process is simple as hitting “Add To Cart” and then fresh seafood arrives on your doorstep soon thereafter. But we want to share stories that peel back the curtain a bit and give you a peek at what makes E-Fish unique.
At 5pm last Thursday we got a call from Chef Jose Andres saying he was heading to Napa for an event and “would love nothing more than a full suite of products”. Fortunately, Chef said “I don’t know what’s realistic given the last-minute ask” and gave us the green light to send whatever was best.
Sourcing exceptional products for demanding Chefs is what we’ve done for more than 10 years. So that wasn’t going to be the “hard” part. The difficult part was going to be having product selected, packed and dropped off for shipping within two hours to meet the UPS cutoff time!
We immediately got on the phone with Joe and Andi Conte at Water2Table and Gene with Tradewind Seafoods. We’ve relied on Gene for years and Uni was an easy choice. Gene dropped everything and made it happen.
Fortunately, we were able to catch Andi still at the pier after another long day and she immediately said “I actually have a boat offloading right now! Let me go outside and see what they have. I’ll send you a picture and we can go from there.”
Within minutes we got a text with this photo:
It couldn’t have been any easier. Within a matter of minutes, we knew Chef was going to receive a shipment of fish that would amaze even the most tenured Chefs. The only reason this was possible at all was that both Water2Table and Tradewinds have long-lasting relationships with their fishermen and women. Having a revolving door of exceptional product does not happen by chance or accident.
The small businesses we work with are built on reputations earned hustling every day for the fishermen and women they work with. We’re psyched to be able to work with them to get rockstar quality seafood to Chefs and homes across the country every single week... now that’s badass.
So we just wanted to give a quick shout-out to everyone that is hustling for us to make all of this possible. From the fishermen and women to our suppliers and even the UPS drivers- when they’re on time ;), we appreciate you more than you know!
It’s no small task getting fresh, sustainable seafood to your doorstep, but we sure love doing it!