Magnus Houston, managing director of Fishbox, explains why the business should win the Startup of the Year category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition:
Fishbox functions similar to a vegetables box, but sends fresh, sustainable, seafood direct to UK customers. What makes us different from online fishmongers is that customers don’t dictate what they receive, they instead rate over 60 different products as a ‘love’, ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ and we pack their boxes accordingly with seasonal fish and shellfish. This allows customers to try lesser-known fish, reducing demand on popular species and challenging consumer consumption attitudes.
We have quadrupled our sales to over £40,000 per month and built a team of 13 employees. We are about to move into 24-hour shifts to keep up with demand, doubling our current employee numbers. Rapid growth means servicing customer demand is much more complex.
We are working with Stirling University to build an innovative algorithm that examines fish markets in real-time and creates a ‘live shopping list’ to stock each box. However, a large box has 131,115,985 possible product combinations. On top of this figure, the algorithm must consider price (which fluctuates), perishability, fish yield, the visual effect of each box (colour, texture) and since it is a wild product, some species may not be available so must be replaced with another product.
We were told no ordering system in the world had this capability and it wasn’t possible. However, we’re in the process of creating this unique system, ensuring all customers still receive the same high-quality product with zero waste and fast stock turnover. It is essential to optimise production and service our exponential growth.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the top three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
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