FAQ

We pack your products carefully in a reusable, recyclable cooler containing plenty of dry ice. The individual portions or packs within the cooler are vacuum-packed. Your fish items should arrive hard-frozen, and all you need to do is transfer them directly to your freezer. There may be some remaining dry ice in the bottom of the shipping cooler, beneath the shipping pad that is under the fish items. Please use care handling any remaining dry ice (per notes on plastic cover); you can simply place the lid back on the shipping cooler overnight to allow the dry ice to dissipate.

We want you to be completely satisfied with the quality of our Sizzlefish products. If you receive fish products that are thawed or materially damaged or have other substantive problems, we will replace your products free of charge. To request a replacement, please contact us at support@sizzlefish.com with details within 7 days of receipt of products. If it is conveniently possible to photograph the problem and attach a photo to your email, we would appreciate it. This is not a requirement, but will help our QC department in dealing with packaging or shipping issues. A replacement will shipped using the same shipping option as the original order.
We are unable to accept returns on our perishable goods, so please do not send your purchase back to us.

Most of our fish is wild-caught, although the Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, and catfish are farmed species. If you are a person who is a totally wild-caught fish eater, you may want to try our Wild Ocean Blend or CTS Endurance Pack, or order the coho salmon, sablefish, and other wild-caught species that we feature. Some folks want to avoid farm-raised fish and we totally respect that. Others have heard conflicting things about farm-raised fish, and hopefully we can offer some insider-insight on this subject.

There are five of us on the Sizzlefish management team and we have spent our careers in seafood (over 120 years, when you add it up). All of us “grew up” in the wild-caught seafood trade, and as time has gone on we have all developed working knowledge in aquaculture as well. The truth is that farm-raised fish varies widely depending on species and practices, and most importantly, whether wild or farmed, you will find that “good fish is good and bad fish is bad.” This is to say that the best-quality fish nowadays tastes great and is raised or caught and handled properly, and the poorest fish is usually what you would expect it to be poorly handled, often has water-added, and is usually the cheapest stuff you can buy

If you are concerned about environmental responsibility, and who of us isn’t, then it is worth considering where we as humans are in terms of sourcing food globally. We now farm nearly all the grain and land animals that we consume; with a population of 7 billion, we literally would starve without global grain and animal farming. One population article recently noted that if humans were to turn to hunting for animal protein, we would consume all the wild land animals on Earth within a few weeks.

Nowadays we farm about half the seafood consumed globally. Aquaculture was developed in part to avoid “fishing to the last fish” - a healthy, tasty way to help supply seafood and take pressure off over-fished resources. And we can attest that the top natural foods grocers today are sourcing farmed fish from suppliers who use no antibiotics, no farm chemicals or pesticides and are in fact environmentally-friendly. Production standards have been developed and are being continuously refined to insure that the environmental and social effect of farming fish is a net positive.

So if you shop at the top-end/natural retailers or seek out top fish purveyors (like Sizzlefish), you will find the best-handled fish whether wild or farmed. If you shop for seafood in big-box discount chains or from the cheapest suppliers, you will get what you pay for. As fish guys, we are seeing the differences between these two groups getting bigger, too, as time goes on.

Our mission with Sizzlefish is to offer direct delivery of top quality fish to fitness-seekers, so that they get the benefits of omega 3 fats in the form of healthy, pure, delicious fish servings. We hope we are making it easy, by offering both variety packs as well as individual species portions, for you to eat and enjoy a variety of fish and get the USDA recommendation of a minimum of 2 servings of fish per week.

Nothing beats the taste of fish fresh out of the water. If you are lucky enough to catch fish yourself and enjoy cooking and eating your catch, or if you live near fishing communities and can buy seafood fresh off the boat, then you know what we’re talking about. But a few days after fish is caught and filleted, it begins to lose its freshness; bacteria start to do their work, and flavor gradually changes after a week or more. After two weeks, virtually all “fresh” unfrozen fish will no longer be fit to eat. Luckily, fish that is flash-frozen (with special equipment that freezes delicate fish flesh within minutes) within a couple of days (or in some cases a few hours) stops the breakdown process. You can then keep this properly-frozen fish in a very fresh state for months, thawing and cooking it when you want to enjoy fish the way it tastes when it comes out of the water.

After whole fish is harvested and filleted, it is usually shipped first to a wholesale intermediary or to a distribution center, and thereafter shipped to the stores selling retail fish to consumers. Each step in this distribution process usually takes days rather than hours. Therefore, the “fresh” fish that you see in the big-box discount grocery store in your neighborhood is usually either 1) already a week or more old, or 2) previously frozen. (Previously frozen fish should be marked as such, but in practice this doesn’t always happen. So ask before you buy.) The exceptions to this are the natural/high-end grocers and fish markets who carefully source their fish. This is where Sizzlefish comes in. We are in the sourcing and processing business – many of those natural/high end retailers are our customers – and in order to offer you a variety of the best fish in a state of freshest flavor, our fish is frozen as soon as possible after processing. In this case, the fish industry’s inside quote rings true: Our frozen fish is usually fresher than fresh! It’s what we feed our families, and we believe it’s what you will want to eat once you’ve tried it.