It is early on a crisp autumn morning as Fresho’s team visit Marrfish. The sun is not up, but one of East Anglia’s premier seafood suppliers is humming with activity.
Many of the orders are neatly lined up and ready to go, packed full of gleaming fresh fish. “We deliver to somewhere in the region of 400 customers” Ben English, Marrfish’s co-founder and Operations Director, tells us.
Marrfish was Fresho’s first UK customer back in 2020. “That’s something we’re quite proud of”, says English. “We’ve been searching for software to use in the region of about 10 years”.
Fresho’s online ordering and order management software is used by Marrfish to reduce inefficient manual tasks, saving the business time and money. Since then, “we (Marrfish) didn’t look back. Never have done” says managing director, Andrew Jackson.
So why did Marrfish choose to work with Fresho?
Ben: “Marrfish had actually been searching for a computer system that would help drive our business forward. So many seafood wholesalers in the UK will use accounts based packages or production based packages, but nothing that can ultimately combine the two. When we were introduced to James (Andronis, Fresho co-founder) by one of the Marrfish directors, we realized quite quickly that Fresho could give us a combination of those two that would help drive our business forward.
Our business was driven by the computer packages that we were able to use, whereas Fresho has enabled us to drive our business in a certain direction.”
How has Marrfish’s operation changed with Fresho?
Andrew: “Well before Fresho life was a very manual, laborious task. Very handwritten and it hadn’t really changed for a number of years.
Fresho helps us in the fact that everything is visible to all of our team, whether it be on a phone, or a tablet. We can get our customers to interact with the business so we can show them our full portfolio of products and pricing. They (chefs) can order online. They can see the whole range of products. You know, we can see what we are selling at the click of a button.
We can see what we’ve sold tomorrow, what’s going out, you know, for the rest of the week. It makes stock control a lot better for me, from a buying perspective.”
How are online payments helping Marrfish extend credit terms for customers?
Ben: “Fresho offers us the opportunity to provide an online payment system for our customer base.
We were able to say to all of our cash customers that we no longer took cash, but if you put a credit card up front, then we could take a payment on the day for the product and that would be processed and go through and they pay their bills as normal.
The added benefit is that we can also approach our other customers that are maybe searching for longer credit terms with us and enable them to stretch their own credit terms. We offer a seven, 14, or 30 day credit depending on the risk to Marrfish. They can then extend that up to another 30 days by putting their credit card onto the system.
We’re in a little period of uncertainty, and actually we want to stretch our cash flow as much as possible by using the credit card function that’s on Fresho.”
What has been the best part of working with Fresho?
Ben: “The most impressive thing about working with the Fresho team has been the after sales care that we’ve got. They regularly visit site, they’re continuously out with our customers, teaching them about Fresho and how best to use it in their businesses.
But also the openness to development. When we’ve asked for things to be done, we’ve subsequently integrated a transport routing system.
But to make that work, there were certain reports that we needed to have written specifically for us to do that. And it was no trouble for the Fresho team to dive in and get hands on with us to make that happen.”
Do you have advice for other seafood suppliers considering technology like Fresho?
Andrew: I think you have to embrace technology. Technology enables you to be more effective. It enables you to reduce your cost to serve. It enables you to reduce the cost of order capture. You know, everyone now orders online.
The relationship they (the customers) now have with Marrfish in that they can see all of my range, they can see all of my prices, and actually it will help them develop their menus better.
The average invoice value has gone up. The number of SKUs that we sell to customers has gone up. So actually before we had to talk about that on the phone, what have you got? But now it’s there in front of them on their screen or tablet.”
As we leave Marrfish, it’s clear the business is on a growth trajectory. The pandemic inspired them to open their home delivery service, and now sits alongside their wholesale offering.
“We’re really excited about the possibility of growing that to, to a great size and, and be a great asset to our business”, Jackson tells us.
To request a demo head to https://www.fresho.com/request-a-demo
[…] Managing Director of seafood supplier Marrfish, Andrew Jackson, says that businesses now have to embrace […]