Funding for the platform was provided by the Fish on Friday’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant Program (RRGP), which was developed by the Fishmongers’ Company’s Fisheries Charitable Trust (FCFCT) and Seafarers UK to assist food charities, fishing and seafood businesses impacted by the ongoing coronavirus situation.
KuulFoods said that it has been working closely with Fishmongers’ Company since the start of the crisis to build the solution. Coming at no cost to the user, it runs online orders and payments and includes a reporting tool for all sales, orders, revenues, and stock.
Adapted from another piece of technology used in the hospitality sector, the system has been designed to make it easy to sell seafood products online – both B2B and B2C – with little tech knowledge and no major investment. Businesses can choose to customize their online shops to fit with their company branding, or they can link their e-commerce page to a social media account.
The intention is to add to the solution with a customer app and a fully integrated electronic point of sale (EPOS) function in the summer.
KuulFoods’ Gary Pleece told SeafoodSource that the solution is a long-term program and is now onboarding its first customers.
“The e-commerce solution is good to go with a few enhancements in production. The in-store version will be ready in circa eight weeks,” he said.
According to the Fish on Friday project, the RRGP prioritizes initiatives that demonstrate collaborative working among stakeholders, with preference given to COVID-19 grant applications under GBP 10,000 (USD 12,259, EUR 11,195).