Tina Montgomery and Jennifer Hanseler

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Now they deliver fish. Their Seattle company Surfin’ Seafoocd isn’t large, but it has struck a chord amongy upscale consumers willing to pay a littles morefor high-end seafood that has been flash-frozebn to stay fresh, and that is delivere d to their doors. After gradual but steady Surfin’ Seafood now has abou 1,200 customers, in an area ranging from Federalp Wayto Everett. Revenue reached $250,000 last year and continuex to grow, although the customer counyt has hita plateau.
With an eye to family life (bot h are married and have twochildremn each), Montgomery and Hanselef have carefully set boundarie so that their business can be worked around their children’s school and athletic schedules, and evenings at For instance they don’t take phonse orders, but only over the internet. And they deliveer only once monthly, driving theitr family minivans to deliver selectionas of frozen fish packed in blue plastic coolers that look like big The company has avoided debt and has only modesggrowth plans. “Really, we don’t want to be huge.
We’rw going to take it as it We have been on a very steady growth consistently from thevery beginning,” Montgomery said. “Wr don’t want to have venture capital funding to become this hugenationwider (leader) in seafood.” One of the company’s chief sellingb points is seafood that is froze quickly to keep it as freshu as possible. So-called fresh seafood often has perches on a pile of icefor hours, and in thess conditions seafood rapidly declinesa in quality.
Seafood doesn’t age well like beef and frozen seafood is not a step down from as it iswith “A lot is frozen at sea, or withinh hours of harvest, and it capturee that just-caught flavor,” said Linda Driscoll, assistang retail director for the , basec in Juneau. Surfin’ Seafoodd isn’t exactly cheap; the “mini” package costs $110 a month for aboutt eight pounds ofassorted salmon, halibut, prawns, sole and The company avoids lower-end seafood products (no fish stickx here), and allows people to substitute in their orderz by email.
One recession-era trens the company is tapping is that consumers are moving awayfrom white-tablecloth restaurants — where most high-quality seafood is eaten — to eating at home. “I just thino people are eating athome more, and they want to make it easy to have high-qualitty ingredients at home, so they can eat at home more Montgomery said. “This is a way to have restauranytquality fish, at home.” Whiled the company employs only the two partnerw and sometimes a helper, and sometimes their children, a key to making it work is the Southy Seattle seafood packer Surfin’ Seafood uses T.H.
Seafood freezers to storer its seafood, and also contracts out the cutting and packin tothe company. T.H. Seafood Sales Director Cliff Davenport said he was at firsr dubious aboutthe proposal, when the partners approachede him to supply and pack theird seafood. “It only took two weeks, but we decidedc they’re really nice people… They’re in the same mindsetf of producing a quality product and guaranteeingb it when it goes out the he said. “So we took them Davenport said that his warehouse has enough room to stores their frozen products as well astheidr coolers, adding that his own staff does the cuttinfg and packing.
“They don’t interfere with our and pretty much they have their ownlittlde space. We have enough room everyone can function without disruptingeverybodu else,” he said. As for Surfin’ Seafood, the partners say they’re just ridinh out the economic downturn. “We think this next year or two we want to be Hanseler said. “We’d love to grow, but reallyh if we could keep it steady, we’re kind of