Lovers of fish can go wild with joy, quite literally, as the city gets its first, one-of-its-kind, seafood boutique, Wild Fish, opened recently at Chullickal in Mattancherry. There’s no disputing the Malayali’s love for fish; he/she knows it only too well. This love coupled with awareness about the global changes in ‘fishscape’ has led to a demand for an outlet that brings variety, freshness, hygiene, ready-to-cook, ‘you buy-we fry’ and such possibilities all under one roof. Promoter of the venture and Director, Abad Fisheries, Faraz Javeed says that his aim is to present fish to the consumer in its freshest and cleanest form. Besides he is of the opinion that many fish from the variety are “much maligned” and need to be presented in their true worth. “There is a lot of delicious variety of fish in the sea but people are aware of only some.”
To begin with he presents the cases of Green Job strangely called ‘cement’ locally, Leather Jacket or uduppuri , Tilapia or pilopi or poor man’s karimeen , and feels that its time to rebrand these wonderful fishes.
It is precisely this that the venture aims to do, besides bringing the catch to the consumers through latest techniques in harvesting, preserving, packaging and retailing.
For freshness the chill- kill technique is used, where harvested fish is dunked in ice to preserve its flavour. The ice used too is one procured through “reverse osmosis”, a process that makes it ecologically sound.
A vacuum packing option available at the store helps consumers preserve the bought fish in the chiller for a week without loss of flavour or turning rancid. Popular and daily consumption fish like sardines ( chaala ) and mackerel (aiyla ) are available in marinated, ready-to-cook versions. The buy and cook facility too is for clients who wish to have a fish done in a special way. The chefs at the outlet’s attached hotel, Abad Chullickal can do so. The in-house brand’s breaded versions or ready-to-fry retail packages are available too. Another interesting feature at the outlet is the availability of ‘live’ fish. The client can buy it alive from water tanks!.
George Alex, Brand Manager, says that the 1,000 sq ft outlet has fish in all forms- live, frozen, chilled, dressed and marinated too.
“Home delivery is another helpful feature we offer to customers.” He lists out a range of fish available- mahi-mahi or cycle chain, prawns, shrimps, squids, seer, black Kingfish( modha ), pomfret( avoli) , salmon, mullet and many more.
While home delivery maybe their USP it is “pre-order” that they encourage so to provide utmost freshness to the client.
Today as Wild Fish brings the world of fish to the consumer, Faraz looks back at the small beginnings of Abad Fisheries, the parent company, which today is a leading seafood export house.
“My grandfather began the venture by selling dried shrimps to Myanmar.” Since then the company has traversed through canning seafood in the 50s to frozen seafood in the 70s and today has capacity to process 300 tonnes a day.
Wild Fish is the freshest fish in their basket, bringing to the city international style, trend and hygiene in fish retail.
