The health benefits of consuming seafood are pretty well-renowned all over the world. Regrettably, locating good, high-quality seafood can prove to be a challenging task, especially if you reside in an area far from water sources. While some prefer purchasing their seafood from grocery stores, there are a growing number of people who opt for the more convenient way of making their purchases online.
So, the question arises–is it really safe to buy seafood online?
First and foremost, before we recognize if it is really safe to buy seafood online, we should talk about the most obvious benefit of making a purchase online. Without a shred of a doubt, it is far more convenient to purchase products online than at the grocery store or fish market. How so, you ask? Well, if you make your purchase online, you don’t have to deal with several time-consuming aspects of shopping. You won’t have to find a parking spot for your vehicle or waste time searching for the food in the store. And, most importantly, you won’t have to deal with the busy traffic while en-route and back from the store.
Since the entire online purchase process is quite simple and convenient, many people often misbelief that the quality online isn’t as good as the other products found in physical stores. However, when we talk about seafood, those people couldn´t be further from the truth.
When you purchase seafood online, you get access to fresher food. The seafood you purchase online is fresher than the seafood available for purchase in physical stores. It is simply because there are multiple parties involved in getting seafood to the physical stores. The fish changes hands numerous times and is often only partially chilled. Basically, in a nutshell, the more links in the chain that goes from the supplier to the consumer, the less fresh the product is when it reaches the consumer.
The extended length and duration can also result in the seafood becoming infected by bacteria. Since grocery stores deal in large quantities, they don´t necessarily take proper care of their entire products. In fact, most of them only do the bare minimum, which is in no way good enough when dealing with seafood. In most cases, the seafood found in grocery stores is often shipped from a distribution facility thousands of miles away. Therefore, the seafood is already a few days old when it hits the shelves.
Online stores that deal in selling seafood freeze the fish and other items almost as soon as it is off the boat. As such, they immediately ensure that the freshness of the fish is locked away, thereby reducing the chances of infection and damages to the fish and other seafood. Online seafood companies are well aware that they are fighting against the tide at all times. After all, not everyone is open to the idea of purchasing seafood online. Hence, they actually go to great lengths to maintain the quality of seafood they provide and distribute. Unlike other distributors, online seafood companies actually have greater control over the quality of their food.
Meanwhile, grocery stores are largely dependent on their distributors. They don’t actually have a real, feasible way of ensuring that they´re providing the best quality food to their customers. Plus, it is difficult to go above and beyond the call of duty when there is little incentive for doing so.
There are several other advantages of purchasing seafood online. For instance, you get to choose from a wide range of options. The seafood options at grocery stores are often quite limited. Online seafood stores offer much more variety and they tend to be a lot more upfront about what they are offering.
Additionally, some online stores even provide considerable information about their seafood items and what you can expect from them. There are some sites that even provide recipes as well as information about how a particular seafood tastes. This feature can prove to be very beneficial to those who haven’t tried many different types of fish. Also, you will no longer have to deal with clueless staff members who aren’t aware of what they’re selling. Dealing with a salesperson who doesn’t know much about their products can be a real bummer, to say the least.
We truly believe that you need not worry about buying seafood online.
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