The pandemic has harmed many businesses, but it has also allowed many sectors and many professionals to reinvent themselves and accelerate major trends such as online commerce. Food products, especially fresh ones, have always been at the bottom of online sales, but Covid-19 has changed this reality and has spurred consumers, especially younger ones, to lose their fear of buying fruits, vegetables, cold cuts, meat, cheese, and even fish online. Mobile applications specialized in bridging the gap between consumers and market stalls, for example, have skyrocketed during this health crisis, but this difficult context has also allowed new digital native companies to emerge that no longer have a physical store, but rather focus 100% of their business on online sales and home delivery.
This is the case of La Pescadería de María, an e-commerce specialized in the sale of fish and seafood that wants to transform the shopping experience of a product that is often not consumed enough due to lack of time, price reasons, or not having the habit of going to a trusted fishmonger. "Our mission is to erase the invisible barriers that prevent many people from buying and cooking all the fish they would like because they are lazy, feel insecure, or think it will be too expensive," explains Robert Casanovas, one of the four founding partners of the Barcelona-based company, which buys fish from the main Mediterranean fish markets and seafood from Galicia.
Born in the midst of the pandemic, in July 2020, La Pescadería de María has served 8,000 orders during its first year of operation, with an average amount of 85 euros per purchase and a repeat ratio of over 50%. With sustained monthly growth of 20% so far, the company already employs ten people, distributes throughout Spain, and has set the goal of doubling the number of customers in this second year and soon invoicing one million euros.
The startup, which delivers orders in characteristic blue cardboard boxes, offers a totally personalized service, since customers, in addition to the type of fish and quantities, can also choose the type of cut, the weight of each portion and acquire packs to make a paella or a seafood platter. In Catalonia, orders are delivered within 24 hours, a time that increases to 36 hours in the rest of Spain, although the company is already working to shorten these times.
Among La Pescadería de María's growth projects, the creation of a subscription service stands out, which will allow families to regularly receive the fish they need at home. They also want to sell their fresh fish boxes in gourmet stores in Barcelona, in addition to establishing agreements with gyms and companies to stimulate the consumption of these foods among their clients or employees.
Word of mouth and, especially, Instagram, where the brand has more than 17,300 followers, have played a key role in the success achieved by this online store founded by Robert Casanovas, Susana Prades, Joan Soler and Montserrat Andreu. The stories of customers opening the blue box they have just received are popular, a phenomenon known as unboxing that multiplies the brand's followers or fans.
Behind the effective sales strategy carried out through this social network is Susana Prades, the partner responsible for the marketing area, who has also found in La Pescadería de María a way to reinvent her professional career and undertake at a time when she had just had her second child. A gastronomy enthusiast, until last year, Prades (Barcelona, 1985) was an executive at the Abertis group and has now exchanged highways for fish markets and has become the visible face of the company, to the point that many people believe that she is María.
A graduate in Business Sciences from UPF, Prades, who had been the head of marketing and advertising at Abertis and the head of institutional relations for the infrastructure group, envisioned the potential of online fish sales during confinement due to difficulties in sourcing this product. This is how she decided to create a home delivery service that would be attractive to consumers, with fresh fish of the highest quality at an adjusted price, personalized preparation, and refrigerated shipments in packaging that would prevent the generation of liquids and odors.
To make the initiative a reality, she teamed up with her friend and neighbor, Robert Casanovas, who also brought Montserrat Andreu and Joan Soler into the project. This last partner is a member of the Giró family, who have been dedicated to the world of fish in Penedès for over 100 years, where they began selling in the markets of El Vendrell and Vilafranca, until becoming a benchmark in supplying restaurants throughout Catalonia. "The name María that we have given to our e-commerce is in homage to Joan's grandmother," explains Prades, who sees in this commitment to the Internet "a natural evolution in the fishing tradition of the Giró family," which has been able to reinvent itself and cope with the fall in sales due to the closure of the hospitality industry.
La Pescadería de María has facilities in Vilafranca del Penedès from where it fillets, debones, cuts, vacuum-packs, and prepares orders that it sends throughout Spain, although the business is currently mainly concentrated in the province of Barcelona. The challenge is to close 2021 with a 50% increase in orders received from outside Catalonia, especially from Madrid and Valencia.