With fish firmly on shoppers’ radars, following the recent airing of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight, the forthcoming launch of Catchbox caught our attention (geddit?).

The co-operative scheme offers consumers a regular share of a fisherman’s catch in return for a small initial membership fee and a per-box payment. The catch? From flounders to sprats, you’ll get what you’re given (and in the true spirit of the co-operative movement, you’ll be happy with your lot). Oh, and you have to collect it yourself - it’s not a delivery scheme.

As the mults have been encouraged by Fearnley-Whittingstall to offer more unfamiliar fish species to ease pressure on the ‘big five’ of cod, haddock, salmon, prawns and tuna, is Catchbox something the bigger retailers should look at?

Fish as a category is certainly garnering interest in the right quarters. On Friday, Guy Watson, founder of the Riverford veg box delivery service, revealed his aspiration to offer fish to his customers in the not too distant future, but outlined the challenges he is yet to overcome: “A truly sustainable policy would define not just the species, but the method of catching and would ensure a market for the whole catch.”

As far as the mults are concerned, such a scheme would fly in the face of their obsession with consistency - consumers need to know what they’re getting, they claim.

And with confirmation this week that the big supermarkets continue to grapple with the logistics of box schemes - perhaps it’s a little too early for the idea to catch on with fish buyers quite yet.

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