Seasonal West Palm Beach resident Kay Paupore (left) of Canton, Mich., buys shrimp
from Lisa and Eric Finn of Finn-Atic Fish Co. at the Delray Beach Green Market.
Kurtis Boggs/ The Coastal Star
By Jane Smith
The owner of the Finn-Atic Fish Co. has the perfect last name for his fresh fish business: Finn.
Eric Finn, who was graduated from Florida Atlantic University in 2008 with a degree in marketing and a passion for spearfishing, soon soured on the corporate world. He turned to his love of spearfishing to support himself as a commercial fisherman, selling to restaurants and retailers.
Then last year, he wanted to sell to consumers without the hassle and cost of a physical location. His Internet site went live in October, and is updated daily with the fresh fish available.
“Our specialty is hogfish,” he says of his spearfishing prowess. Hogfish sells for $19.99 a pound, making it the most expensive fish sold by Finn-atic. The fish is filleted by hand.
Lobster, when it is in season, is also popular. “We have a selective way of harvesting that doesn’t involve nets,” Finn, 27, says. “So there’s no waste.”
Finn-atic fish also is available at the Delray GreenMarket on Saturdays until mid-May and the Carnival Flea Market in west Delray Beach on Thursdays.
About half of the company’s sales come from the website, the rest from the markets. A sliding scale of delivery fees ($10-$30) is based on ZIP codes in Palm Beach and Broward counties; orders over $100 are delivered for free.
Wife Lisa, a schoolteacher and co-owner of Finn-atic, helps him at the GreenMarket. His deckhand and all-around mate on the 23-foot Finn-atic fishing boat is Chris Burke. Burke’s girlfriend, Christine Nocastro, works the Thursday market.
Finn is mulling the start of a subscription service this summer, so that consumers won’t have to log on to his website weekly but still can receive fresh fish each week. He is also interested in putting coupons in monthly local magazines to help grow his business.
“Eventually, we’d like to get into shipping across the country,” Finn says. “Many of our green market customers are snowbirds who go back north for the summer but still want fresh fish.”
Finn-Atic Fish Co., www.finnaticfishco.com, 789-8316.
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