Acme Smoked Fish to exit e-commerce business

Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.-based Acme Smoked Fish will soon shut down its direct-to-consumer e-commerce business, an executive with the company told SeafoodSource.

Acme ramped up its e-commerce program during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many Americans were under stay-at-home orders. Now, consumers have returned to shopping in stores, Acme Chief Marketing Officer Teresa Low said, and high labor, raw materials and shipping costs are hurting its online business.

“Costs are rising everywhere, including labor, raw materials, and the cost of shipping individual packages of perishable foods overnight across the country – all of which are impacting businesses across the country like ours,” Low told SeafoodSource. “Since the majority of our customers are able to shop locally again, we decided to keep 100 percent of our focus on our retail partners. The good news now is, people are leaving their homes again and supporting their local stores as they did pre-pandemic, where they can find a wide selection of our products a short drive away."

E-commerce demand at the beginning of the pandemic was high, and produced incremental sales, Low said.

“It was a great business that allowed Acme to serve our customers directly," she said.

While Acme is exiting e-commerce for now, Low said, “we certainly wouldn’t rule out a DTC business in the future if the customer demand is there."

In addition, many of the supplier’s retail partners already deliver to consumers’ homes. Instacart, Fresh Direct, Stop & Shop, and other regional and national retailers carry Acme’s products.

“Next week, we will transition to shipping five of our most-popular bundles on a weekly basis, with our final shipments going out on Monday, 16 December,” Low said.

Photo courtesy of Acme