Sustainable fish startup, Faircatch, offers a new way to buy fish directly from fishermen – from sea to plate in 48 hours. The 18 month-old London based startup is expanding across the capital and have grown from 1 to 10 collection points across the South West of the city.

The Faircatch mission is simple: provide fresher fish and a fairer deal for fishermen. Bypassing the traditional supply chain, fish is distributed to members within 48 hours.

This is in contrast to supermarkets where the fish can be as much as 3 weeks old.

The Faircatch subscription works a bit like a veg box scheme where members sign up online for a 4, 8 or 12 week period. Members specify which weekends they would like fish and collect it from a variety of local businesses that include butchers, pubs and cafes.

Faircatch only sources fish from small day-boats which use environmentally-sound methods and cause no damage to the marine environment.

We caught up with Faircatch co-founder Guy Dorell for a phone interview to find out more details:

“Our members have been enjoying gurnard, dabs, monkfish, huss, grey mullet, bream and even octopus, and it’s fantastic people are discovering the whole range of delicious and underrated species that are caught in our closest coastal waters”.

Faircatch is also rolling out a programme of fishy education sessions in local schools and nurseries.

Appalled by some research which showed 10% of children thought fish was ‘grown in a supermarket or a garden pond’, Guy decided there was a need for an initiative to foster a stronger connection with the source of their food. Guy is also keen to expand the scope of the sessions to include gutting, filleting and skinning fish in the classroom and making fish fingers.

For more information about Faircatch, their fish, the fishermen who catch them and their education initiatives check out faircatch.co.uk or sign up for the mailing list. To place your first fish box order, simply sign up to the subscription service and enjoy your fresh fish.