Wholesale seafood vendors are under immense pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic as they find themselves in a marketplace driven by product shortages and pent-up demand.
“Just like in dozens of other overwhelmed industries in the booming economy, there are any number of factors causing the shortages and prices spikes: The ports are congested; there aren’t enough fisherman; there aren’t enough truck drivers’ and demand for seafood at restaurants is soaring,” wrote Bloomberg’s Kate Krader and Adam Jackson on July 27, 2021.
Inventory control and accounting are more important than ever, so it pays for wholesale seafood vendors to utilize a tracking system such as FreshByte’s seafood distribution software.
One aspect of the wholesale seafood that has not changed is that the business is based on
It does not matter if your wholesale seafood market is served locally, regionally, nationally, or globally – your profits are based on how quickly you can get your product from the docks to your customers.
"It's all about getting it out as fresh as we can, so we can get the best price for it," Eddie Gambardella, owner of Gambardella Wholesale Fish Dealers told Joe Wojtas in a July 24, 2021 article in Connecticut’s The Day publication. “We want to get it out as fresh as we can, so we can pay the boat's top dollar.”
Many wholesale seafood vendors buy and sell locally.
“We want to buy as much fish locally as we can and sell it locally. We want to serve the freshest product and support local fishermen by paying them more,” Alene Whipple of Sea Well Seafood said in The Day article. “It’s the right thing to do. We didn’t go into this business to be millionaires. It’s about contributing to the community.”
Many wholesale seafood vendors are used to doing inventory control and distribution tracking the old school way with stacks of invoices written by hand and stuffed in filing cabinets.
To assure the freshness of product delivered and keep abreast of fluctuating catch quotas, customer demands and industry regulations, utilizing a software-based tracking system is vital for inventory control.
Some of the advantages of using a tracking system, as FreshByte’s seafood distribution software, include:
Data Done Right: Wholesale seafood distribution vendors can risk drowning in a sea of data, but distribution software allows for all the numbers to be put in line in one place. Productivity and profits are increased when you have one system that tracks:
Inventory Control to Guarantee Freshness: Inventory control is always important in every industry but in wholesale seafood it guarantees freshness. Distribution software can keep track of exact quantity, quality, and other details of your inventory. A good tracking system will have traceability built in that will allow you to know where your inventory is at every step of the supply chain.
Food Safety: Wholesale seafood vendors play an important role in food safety and a good distribution software with forward and backward tracking can not only keep end users safe, but keep their own business in compliance with local, state, and federal regulations.
Better Forecasting: All of that accumulated hand-written data does not help with forecasting. By using a distribution software, wholesale seafood vendors can predict future buying and production needs by season.
FreshByte’s seafood distribution software features are specifically attuned to inventory control in the wholesale seafood industry.
Contact us today to find out how our distribution software can meet your wholesale seafood unique set of challenges.