Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Red’s Best is closing its Menemsha Fish House wholesale distribution division on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, for the winter as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact business.
The company, which unloads fishing boats, aggregates catches, and sells to high-end wholesalers, is closing the location for the winter due to a lack of business, Red’s Best Owner Jared Auerbach told SeafoodSource.
“There is not enough restaurant business there [in the winter],” Auerbach said. After the winter, he said, “we will be open for buying fish.”
Typically, the Menemsha Fish House remains open all-year-round, buying fish from local fishermen. But Auerbach said the decision isn't related to COVID-19 issues, and that it wasn't always profitable.
"It was always a struggle in the winter on the island. There are 15,000 to 17,000 permanent residents there in the winter, while during the summer there are around 100,000 to 115,000 people there," Auerbach said.
Red’s Best’s other locations will remain open.
While he was unclear which company would be operating the facility this spring, Auerbach said that “the building will remain and someone will be buying fish there that we will be affiliated with.”
Like most other seafood suppliers, Red’s Best, which also operates a fish market and restaurant in Boston, was hit hard at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company was forced to lay off around 90 percent of its staff.
“We handle a lot of high-end local fish, and that supply chain is really dependent on restaurant demand,” Auerbach said. “When wholesalers around the country started closing their doors, we went into hibernation mode, but we battled back somehow.”
Starting this summer, business picked up as “everybody in the supply chain pivoted in their unique way, which led to some sort of sustainability in the supply chain” Auerbach said.
Red’s Best focused more on supplying frozen fish and direct-to-consumer channels such as e-commerce.
“Our customer base is still similar to where it was pre-COVID, and they rely on restaurants,” Auerbach said. “We are not back where we were, but we are surviving.”
