The Westin Hyderabad Mindspace hotel hosts a Sumptuous Seafood Affair

Seafood start-up Captain Fresh has raised $3 million in a seed funding round co-led by Matrix Partners India and Ankur Capital.

The funding round was also led by Incubate Fund and angel investors, including Jupiter Money’s Jitendra Gupta and Pine Labs’ Amrish Rau.

Founded in 2019 by Utham Gowda, it supplies fresh water fish and seafood to more than 550 retailers across general and modern trade, as well as to online meat and seafood retailers.

The brand has presence in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Mangaluru and Visakhapatnam.

“We are digitally transforming the highly inefficient fresh fish and seafood supply chain in India by aggregating the fragmented retail demand across the country and linking them to the small fishermen and farmers throughout the Indian coast,” shared Gowda by adding that the company has witnessed 10x revenue growth in the last 18 months, taking it closer to the $1 million per month revenue milestone.

Also Read: Captain Fresh bags $2.3 mn funding from Ankur Capital, others

Captain Fresh will utilise the fresh funding to deepen its sourcing and distribution networks, apart from investing in people and technology.

“As a result of their tech-driven approach and focus on reduction in wastage, they have seen rapid adoption across channels,” added Tarun Davda, MD, Matrix Partners India.

The seafood market in India is estimated to grow to $60 billion by 2024, Captain Fresh added, pointing that it wants to become a leading player in this space. It is organising the $30 billion seafood supply chain in India by promising to provide better quality fish at more competitive prices compared to unorganised channels.

Apex industry body ASSOCHAM has urged the Union Government to reduce customs duty on chilled and frozen sea food from present level of 30 percent to 10 percent to bring down food inflation and satiate high demand for sea food in India.

ASSOCHAM highlighted in its pre-budget memorandum (indirect taxes) submitted to the Centre, "Local fisheries will not get affected by imports because sea food availability in India is much lower than its demand."

D S Rawat, secretary general of ASSOCHAM, "High import duty makes it unviable to bring-in a variety of sea food products available globally which shall reduce food inflation tremendously and provide much-needed proteins to Indians at cheap cost."

WestCoast Group, one of country's fully integrated seafood companies has launched its e-commerce portal, Cambaytiger.com. It now aims to be one of the largest players in seafood e-commerce space by delivering quality seafood to customers living anywhere in Mumbai. The company plans to soon expand its ecommerce service to other metros such as Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai. Cambay Tiger is one of India's largest selling seafood brands and flagship brand of the WestCoast Group.

Shivam Gupta, Director, WestCoast Fine Foods (India) Pvt Ltd said, “The quality in customer delivery of seafood in Mumbai is going to witness a sea-change with Cambaytiger.com. Customers are going to get the unparallel scale, reach and satisfaction, that they have never experienced anywhere. In a first of its kind in the country, we will provide two unique services to our customers. Firstly, customers will be able to order prawns & Tilapia straight from our farms to their homes, giving them a true farm-to-fork experience with guaranteed traceability. Secondly, there is also an option of ordering live Tilapia from homes.”

He further added “By investing in state of the art tankers to transport live Tilapia from our farms to customers directly, will result in consumers experiencing a quality of fish never seen before in India.” Live fish is caught from Cambay Tiger’s fish tanks at its retail depot in Mumbai, immediately after a customer orders.

Cambaytiger.com will serve live, raw, ready-to-cook and frozen seafood. Live seafood will initially include Tilapia and mud crabs. Raw would include crustaceans, including prawns, exotic fish such as Atlantic Salmon (flown all the way from Norway), fresh water fish such as Catla, Tilapia and Hilsa and sea water fish such as Indian Salmon, Seer(Surmai), Chinese Pomfret and Silver Pomfret. The ready-to-cook seafood will include marinated Tilapia, Prawns, Pomfret, Salmon and Surmai. Frozen will include DVT Prawns, Tilapia, Fish Fingers, Basa Chunks, Fish Pakodas, Fish Seekh Kababs and Surmai. Customers could also order items such as marinades, canned fish and regional fish pickles online.

Cambay Tiger’s callout line to its customers has been ‘our fish hasn’t been to the fish market so shouldn’t you?’

Cambaytiger.com will also serve frozen veg snacks of Frish and Kawan brands such as Garlic Naan, Aloo Kulcha, Pizza Pockets, Jalapeno Cheese Pockets, Potato Alphabites, Potato Teddy Bears, Potato Masala Wedges, Tawa Paratha, Onion Paratha and Multi-grain Paratha.

WestCoast recently opened a state- of-the-art 3,000 sq.ft. cold storage and distribution centre at Mahim, Mumbai that will support its e-commerce in the city. It also owns and integrates its activities right from shrimp hatcheries, shrimp and fish farms, shrimp feed marketing, processing, exports and domestic retail. The group is a leading exporter of seafood, primarily shrimps to more than 30 countries.

The company recently opened its exclusive lifestyle seafood retail outlet – Cambay Tiger Seafood Mart at Bandra and Lokhandwala in Mumbai. The ambience, design, display, and human resources at the shop have been tailored to give its customers a first-of-its-kind seafood retailing experience in India, they would sometimes have experienced at shops only in US or Europe. It soon plans to expand the chain to other parts of Mumbai and also to other metros.

Shivam Gupta said, “Seafood no longer remains a commodity, but has become a health and lifestyle product. So the cold chain, logistics and retail infrastructure should also change drastically to match this reality. Our e-commerce launch and expansion of lifestyle outlet Cambay Tiger Seafood Mart have been designed to meet this change.”

Cambaytiger.com will also enlighten viewers with tips to select and cook seafood and also offer exotic recipe. There is an opportunity for viewers to submit their recipes. The portal offers dietary experts including nutritionists, dieticians and culinary connoisseurs to be part of an exclusive experts group and be privy to a host of benefits such as tastings, website features and blogs.

b-bar a franchise restaurant from George V Entertainment has organized Delhi’s first ever stand-alone Robatayaki Festival to celebrate this exclusive Japanese cuisine.

The festival be organised throughout  September  at b-bar, Select City Walk, Saket.

Robatayaki, which literally means “fireside-cooking” in Japanese is often shortened to just Robata and refers to a method of cooking similar to a barbecue in which items of food on skewers or iron griddles are slow-grilled over hot charcoal.

It is the original traditional Japanese style of barbecue cooking which is prepared in front of customers and is served directly, similar to the manner of Sushi preparation and presentation.

Welcoming guests on the occasion of the Festival launch, Chef Richard B said, “The beauty of Robatayaki cuisine is its emphasis on fresh ingredients and the smoldering cooking over the grill that captures the texture and taste of the food perfectly. It is tasty and healthy and an experience all at once.”

The cooking procedure is highly engaging and guests can select their choice from the carefully selected seasonal vegetables, seafood, poultry and meat from Robata section. Chefs then delicately grill the same with the guest’s choice of glaze to perfection.

b-bar Executive Chef Richard B has created a menu that features some of the classic combinations of Robatayaki cooking. The menu offers a mix of both vegetarian and non vegetarian dishes.

Customers can sample an array of exotic meat preparations featuring Rock Lobster, Jumbo prawns, Salmon, Baby Chicken or go for vegan favourites such as Asparagus, Eggplant, Bottle Gourd etc served with a choice of glaze and sauces.

Created in an experiential format, the Festival allows guests to choose their preferred meats or vegetables, which are then prepared at the live stations to their taste.