73 Pet Product News International ATIC MARKETPLACE
Sizzle Sales
with Frozen Foods
Retailers have had great success offering customers frozen aquarium
diets, which offer a competitive advantage and attractive margins
for local fish stores.
BY E THAN D. MIZER
The market for frozen aquarium foods has ma- tured, with many stores carrying them as stan- dard fare—especially among retailers who cater
to high-end reef hobbyists and customers looking to
optimize nutrition for their fish.
Though frozen offerings require greater investment and infrastructure to maintain, they offer independent pet specialty retailers higher profit margins,
help retain customer loyalty, and act as a competitive
buffer against online competition, industry participants reported.
“Based on any survey we have ever seen, frozen
food customers tend to visit the store up to 11 times
more frequently than nonfrozen food customers,”
said Chris Clevers, president of Hikari Sales USA in
Hayward, Calif. “This is a big incentive for retailers
to get their customers on to frozen foods. It lets them
open that consumer up to multiple impulse sales op-
portunities and offers them less online competition to
have to battle.”
Frozen foods have helped the hobby a great deal in
the past several years, industry participants reported,
allowing fish keepers to healthfully maintain a wider
variety of species. Hobbyists are somewhat split on
whether to offer frozen foods as the main component
of aquarium inhabitants’ diets or to use frozen foods
as intermittent treats.
“People tend to do the opposite of what should
be done,” said Anthony Johnson, owner of Reef Life
Aquatic in Palatka, Fla. “They use the frozen foods as
supplemental feeding, and they like to use their dry
foods because it’s convenient. I’d love to see them do
it the other way around and begin using their frozen
foods for their meat-and-potatoes primary feedings,
and just use the dry foods intermittently.”
It makes sense for retailers to help direct customers
toward offering more frozen foods, as it can help with
overall aquarium inhabitant health, and boost traffic
in their stores, which are often customers’ only source
of frozen offerings.
“The average customer is feeding their fish just
pelleted food or just flake food, and we encourage the
use of frozen food as they get a bigger variety of fish,”
said Howard “Howie” Berkowitz, owner of Aquari-
dise in East Brunswick, N.J. “They really need to di-
versify the food that they’re feeding, and frozen food
is probably, at least in our opinion, the best choice for
most marine fish.”
Ultimately, it comes down to nutrition, and it’s in-
cumbent upon retailers to help customers understand
their options to maximize fish health.
“Marine fish require a specific amount of proteins,
carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and amino acids
to stay healthy,” Clevers said. “Without using a for-
mulated food as the baseline staple for their feeding
regime, they may be running into health issues as time
progresses. Even our foods, many of which are gut
loaded with bio-encapsulated vitamins and minerals
we know marine fish need, should not be relied on as
the only food a fish is being fed.”
Most customers will buy directly from local fish
stores, and not many nonspecialty retailers carry fro-
zen offerings, according to retailers. Some customers
prefer to buy in bulk, as well.
“Customers usually like buying it from the store, I
noticed,” said Kevork Tarakjian, owner of Blue Planet
Aquarium in Fresno, Calif. “Sometimes people buy it
in bulk. It depends on what kind of hobbyist they are.”
Especially on the marine side of the hobby, offer-
ing frozen foods makes a lot of sense for retailers.
“Frozen food is the go-to choice for most marine
hobbyists,” Clevers said. “They feel using frozen food
allows them to more closely mimic what their fish
would be eating on the reef. Retailers prefer frozen
food because it keeps customers coming back to their
store more frequently, which is great for business.”
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