Shuck me I'm a Finfluencer

In a genuinely shucking development, I recently found myself as the face of amateur oyster opening on social media.

My story starts with my daily scroll through Instagram. Something caught my eye; my favourite online fish shop, Pesky Fish, announcing a new line - Fresh Pembrokeshire Oysters.

I love oysters, so throwing caution to the wind decided to buy a box.

Pesky Fish is a "Fin-Tech" company with an online market selling fresh fish and seafood straight off trawlers. All the fish is from sustainable sources and importantly traceable.

The market opens every evening and sells out pretty quickly, but I got lucky and landed myself a dozen. Happy Days ??!

The following day, a thought swam into my brain. How the shuck do you open them? Gulp!

In a Matrix-like move, seconds later, an email dropped into my inbox from the aptly named [email protected] mail account, Subject: Are you ready to shuck?

For the unshucked, the email had two things of note. A link to Amazon for a knife and gloves and a link to Andys handy for opening an oyster. Shuck me, what prescience. Awesome customer service!

Amazon:

Andy:

Knife order from Amazon, the race was on for delivery, oysters vs knife. I netted a right result, both arrived within minutes of each other.

When the oysters turned up, I was impressed. They were packaged beautifully. So I did the social thing and posted a picture on Instagram, adding "tune in later for an Instagram live of me trying my hands at shucking". A joke obviously??.

However, Pesky Fish DM'ed me: "What time would I be shucking and could they share the live?" They added it would be a massive help as they wanted to showcase a member of the public, not a chef or fishmonger, opening oysters. Fear of shucking is a reason why people don't buy them. I sent a message back saying I was happy to do it, but that I was a complete novice. We agreed that actually, a recorded video would be best. Based on Andys handy instruction and having the knife, shucking was actually pretty easy! I sent a video, which was duly uploaded onto the Pesky Fish Instagram feed promoting me as a Finfluencer! They also sent a mail to all the customers who had bought oysters, with a link to the video.

It was actually a lot of fun and the oysters tasted amazing.

So why write this? Basically, I wanted to celebrate Pesky Fish as a start-up business. Pesky fish is a thoroughly modern business that has transformed one of the oldest industries.

It saw an opportunity and grabbed it with both hands. The fishing industry in the UK has been caught up in the aftershocks of BREXIT, but Pesky has used this to its advantage and changed the model.

How

• A digital marketplaice to connect consumers with British day boats, who employ sustainable, low impact catch methods.
• Mastery of social media; they have built an impressive following on Instagram and use social media to drive awareness, advocacy and new business. Content includes customer stories.
• Customer insight - data is critical to the operation. Insight on how and why customers are buying fish is used to continually evolve the proposition.
• Sustainability, traceability and being eco-friendly are the foundations of the proposition. So for example, all its packaging is 100% recyclable.

Pesky Fish is the sort of business that should give us all hope, it is one of the many start-ups that is changing the business landscape, and I salute them. Study them and you will see so many lessons to be learnt.

And its oysters and fish taste shucking amazing!