If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. If you buy a fish online, you never have to leave your home. What sounds better?
There are delivery services for all types of food, and one of the best ways to get fresh salmon, swordfish, scallops and other delicious seafood is by buying it online. It’s a great option if your local market’s seafood section leaves much to be desired. I recommend you make the switch to an online seafood service or fishmonger. I tested all of the top players to find the best place to buy seafood online in 2023 and threw the rest back. The resulting list is a virtually endless, um, sea of options for ordering really fresh seafood.
Don’t believe me? Consider this…
Seafood bought online is likely fresher than the supermarket
With the exception of a select species like lobster, most seafood you order online ships and arrives frozen or, in some cases, partially thawed. If that gives you pause, remember that much of the “fresh” seafood you’re buying at a grocery store has already been frozen and defrosted before being laid out on the ice or wrapped in plastic. It’s also important to know that frozen fish is just as good for you as fresh fish, provided it’s handled and packaged properly.
If you live near a great fish market that sells actual fresh seafood (not frozen and thawed) and also has a high turnover, then that might be the freshest fish available to you. I don’t have that luxury and neither do many others who are landlocked or miles from a reliable seafood shop. That means the freshest fish for us is probably what you’ll find online from a reliable seafood vendor that flash-freezes each filet immediately after it’s caught.
What type of seafood can you order online?
These online fish marketplaces stock everything from crab cakes to shellfish including prawns for your favorite grilled shrimp recipe or clams for salty New England clam chowder. You’ll be able to order a fresh haul of salmon, tuna, cod, sea bass, halibut, crab, mussels, mahi mahi, swordfish, lobster, smoked fish and caviar, even if you don’t live anywhere near the sea. You’ll also get harder-to-find species of fish like monkfish, rockfish, wahoo, king crab, sablefish and grouper.
You can find both familiar and rare species of fish online.
How is online seafood shipped?
Most seafood purchased online is flash-frozen, carefully packaged with dry ice and delivered to your door as a one-time order or in a recurring subscription. Every box I ordered from each vendor on this list arrived with all the fish still fully frozen, which is exactly what you want. The rare exception is live shellfish including lobster and crab which are sometimes shipped fresh overnight. Freshness and transparency are key when buying seafood and many companies are finding innovative ways to ensure both while supporting sustainable seafood fishing practices. Many retailers provide detailed records of exactly where the seafood came from, when it was caught and even how far it traveled.
These are the best places to buy healthy seafood online in 2023. I hope you’re hungry.
Pricing Starting at $7, boxes starting at $65Type à la carte, bundlesRegional Availability Continental United StatesNumber of Meal Options per Week NAMenu Options/ Diet Types Seafood
About Fulton Fish Market: The name might sound familiar and that’s because it’s a physical fish market in New York City — the second largest in the world only behind Tokyo’s famously huge fish market. Fulton now offers online sales, in addition to selling wholesale off the docks to some of the largest purveyors and restaurant groups in the world. That means that through Fulton Fish Market you’ll have access to one of the largest selections of fresh fish and seafood anywhere.
You can get almost any variety of fish from wild and farmed salmon to fresh swordfish, halibut, trout and a few harder-to-find species. Fulton also has a wide selection of shellfish including Atlantic and Pacific oysters, lobsters, scallops, crab meat, soft shell crabs, mussels and clams. That’s not all: You can add tasty H. Forman & Son smoked salmon or tins of paddlefish caviar to your order.
How it works: At Fulton Fish Market you order fish by the piece, box or a curated bundle. Different species like fresh tuna, wild snapper and cod are available in different counts and you’ll generally save more per pound if you order in bundles. You can also subscribe and Fulton will send a monthly, bimonthly or weekly curated box of fish starting at $75 per month for four six-ounce portions, but ordering a la carte seems to net the best value.
Pricing Starting at $7, boxes starting at $120Type à la carte, bundlesRegional Availability Continental United StatesNumber of Meal Options per Week NAMenu Options/ Diet Types Seafood, beef
About SizzleFish: Sizzlefish might have a slightly smaller inventory than Fulton, but not by much. This online seafood vendor still stocks all the hits including wild salmon, sea bass, halibut, trout rockfish and tuna. Everything I tried in a heaping delivery tasted as fresh as any flash-frozen fish I’ve had. There’s also a small selection of meats including filet mignons, ribeyes and ground beef.
One thing to note about SizzleFish is the relatively high prices, especially if you buy in smaller amounts. I couldn’t find a single portion of salmon for less than $14, for instance. It gets slightly less expensive if you order in bulk, like this 14-pack of farm-raised salmon filets for $110. Buying in bulk or signing up for a subscription is definitely the best way to shop on SizzleFish and avoid busting the budget.
Pricing Starting at $8Type à la carte, bundlesRegional Availability Continental United StatesNumber of Meal Options per Week NAMenu Options/ Diet Types Beef, seafood, poultry, pork, lamb
About Rastelli’s: Rastelli’s began as a small butcher shop in 1976 serving its small New Jersey community. The family-owned butcher made a name selling some of the best meat possible, but more recently Rastelli’s entered the seafood game, and its catch is as fresh as any on the list. You can score fish-fan favorites like wild tuna, Faroe Island salmon, shrimp, lobster and Icelandic cod. It may not have as big a selection as some others we reviewed but the beauty of Rastelli’s — beyond supporting a small business and not having to leave the house — is ordering your seafood, beef, chicken and pork all in one place.
How it works: Seafood from Rastelli’s can be ordered in semibulk (eight filets of cod, for instance). You can shop a la carte for fish, shrimp and meats and prices are reasonable, including a pack of two wild-caught swordfish filets for $14. Shipping is free when you spend $200, so you can get the month’s meat and fish supply in a single order and pay nothing for delivery. Use code CNET20 and get $20 off your first order.
Pricing Lobster starting at $30Type à la carteRegional Availability United States nationwideNumber of Meal Options per Week NAMenu Options/ Diet Types Seafood (mainly lobster)
About LobsterAnywhere: As the name implies, this company specializes in the tasty crustaceans and ships them live and direct from the cold waters of Maine, the lobster capital of the US. They sell only hard-shelled lobsters, including live Maine lobster which are more expensive than soft-shell but are also considered to be the best — so you might be able to find cheaper lobsters in your supermarket, but LobsterAnywhere promises the absolute best in quality. Because of market fluctuation LobsterAnywhere’s prices also fluctuate but are generally competitive.
How it works: There are other offerings available like shrimp and scallop, but Maine lobster is definitely the main draw here. You can order a whole live lobster (or lobsters) as well as lobster tails (frozen and in the shell) or lobster meat (shelled) by the pound. This is not a subscription, so you order exactly what you want and it ships in roughly two days.
Pricing Starting at $10Type à la carteRegional Availability United States nationwideNumber of Meal Options per Week NAMenu Options/ Diet Types Seafood
About Riviera Seafood Club: If you’re looking for a really special piece of tuna belly, hamachi or yellowtail to sear quickly on the grill or serve sashimi-style, I would direct your attention to this family owned online seafood purveyor based out of Los Angeles. The Ito family procures some of the best high-end sushi-grade fish, along with some more common catches like wild salmon, black cod, prawns and unagi. I had a filet of fresh bluefin tuna delivered and it was an immaculately fresh piece of fish with gorgeous marbling and rich flavor.
How it works: Riviera Seafood Club ships fresh or flash-frozen fish to all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and most of it is sashimi-grade, meaning you can slice and eat — no cooking necessary. It’s also very reasonably priced considering the quality with a six-ounce hamachi yellowtail collar starting at $14. To avoid shipping charges, you’ll have to get your cart over a certain dollar amount between $125 and $375 depending on where you live.
Pricing Starting at $145Type BundlesRegional Availability United States nationwideNumber of Meal Options per Week NAMenu Options/ Diet Types Seafood
About Wild Alaskan Company: As you might have gathered from the name, this company specializes in fresh wild-caught seafood including wild salmon. It is generally thought to be both healthier and more sustainable than farmed fish, and company founder and Alaska native Arron Kallenberg has set his sights on helping American consumers gain access to good, fresh fish. All the fish is caught either in Alaska or the Pacific Northwest with a commitment to sustainability and transparency. As of August 2020, the company added wild-caught Alaskan Dungeness crab as a member special.
How it works: The company bills itself as a share more than a traditional retailer or marketplace and offers a monthly subscription. You can choose from salmon-only boxes, whitefish boxes or a combo, and the monthly shipments of fish (frozen at “peak freshness”) start at $145 per month for 12 six-ounce portions. You can skip months or pause your membership anytime at no extra charge.
Pricing Starting at $15Type à la carte, bundlesRegional Availability United StatesNumber of Meal Options per Week NAMenu Options/ Diet Types Seafood, pescatarian, kosher
About Sea to Table: Americans really eat just a small handful of types of fish at home, according to Sea to Table’s Sean Dimin, and one of his aims is to introduce folks to great catches like Atlantic skate, redfish or Dover sole. Sea to Table’s fish all comes from US wild domestic fisheries and is caught, landed and processed in the US. To prove it, each pack of fish has a traceability label so you know exactly what you’re getting and where it came from, down to the actual fishing vessel that landed it.
How it works: You can choose from boxes like The New Englander, The Kosher Box and The Discovery Box, which features six full servings of fish from sustainable fisheries, including Maine redfish, scallops and skate, starting at just $38 (plus shipping). Choose either a one-time order or a (slightly cheaper) subscription to be delivered every two, four or eight weeks. Everything ships FedEx ground, fresh-frozen and packed with dry ice in recycled denim packaging.
Pricing Starting at $30, boxes starting at $130Type à la carte, bundlesRegional Availability United States nationwide, non-perishable items to CanadaNumber of Meal Options per Week NAMenu Options/ Diet Types Seafood
About Vital Choice: “Vital Choice” may sound more like a vitamin brand than a seafood market, but that could be by design. The online market sells shoals of fresh seafood, shellfish, canned seafood and more eats from under the sea, but also has a massive section dedicated to seafood-derived health products and supplements like omega-3s, fish oils and immune boosters. I would say definitely check out the supplements, but the real star of the show remains the sprawling selection of wild sockeye salmon, halibut, sea bass, crab, shrimp, scallops and much more.
Vital Choice puts an emphasis on wild and sustainable seafood where possible, claiming that it limits most of its offerings to fish and shellfish from fisheries that are either certified sustainable or considered sustainable by experts.
How it works: Vital Choice operates like most other online retailers allowing you to build a cart and place a one-time order of any of its seafood products. You can order a single portion of some fish varieties, but many have a six-portion minimum. Any order over $99 ships for free.
There’s also a monthly subscription option called Vital Box with three distinct categories. One options is the Wild Salmon Box that features 10-14 servings of salmon for $129 per month.
Vital Box’s website could probably use an update and some sections aren’t the most intuitive, but there are lots of great options for sustainable seafood and other seafood products, so it’s worth a few broken links and extra clicks to get where you’re going.
Pricing Starting at $106 with subscriptionType BundlesRegional Availability Continental United StatesNumber of Meal Options per Week NAMenu Options/ Diet Types Seafood
If you want a variety of seafood to throw on the barbie, I would direct you to the PureFish Grill Box. This package includes 16 servings of grill-friendly seafood including ahi tuna, snapper, wild-caight shrimp, salmon hot dogs and cobia burgers. Each is conveniently packed on an aluminum tray so you can season and bring it right out to the grill without dirtying up more dishes. You can even put the trays directly on the grill if you’re trying to avoid a messy grill situation later but most of the fish in this box is firm enough to go right on the grill grates. All the seafood arrives fresh but since it’s vacuum-sealed you can pop it into the freezer for when you’re ready to roll.
Pricing Starting at $10, boxes starting at $100Type à la carte, bundlesRegional Availability United StatesNumber of Meal Options per Week NAMenu Options/ Diet Types Seafood, paleo, keto
About KnowSeafood: This direct-to-consumer seafood shop puts transparency and seafood tracing front and center. Every step in the online fish purveyors blockchain is traced and you can see it all when you scan the barcode that adorns each piece of seafood. Scan the code and you’ll see when and where your scallops were caught, processed and transported, plus information on how best to defrost and store them. All the seafood is flash frozen for peak freshness and everything I got in my delivery was just that — fresh. KnowSeafood uses only heavily vetted fisheries around the world.
How it works: You can either create your own custom box of seafood from KnowSeafood’s selection of fish, shellfish and prepared foods including salmon and tuna burgers or choose one of the online market’s curated seafood boxes and enjoy a variety of healthy fish. The Keto Box, for instance, has 20 servings of seafood — salmon, black cod, scallops, tuna and rainbow trout — for just $125.
Use code KS20 for $20 off your first order.
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Best Seafood Delivery Services for 2023 – CNET
Source: Media Star Philippines
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