Sydney Morning Herald , Australia
May 23 2005

Economy of scale
By Helen Greenwood
May 24, 2005

Fish shops may come and go but one fresh thinker, Fisherman’s Fresh,
keeps minting ideas.

Fisherman’s Fresh

SHOP 144, WESTFIELD BURWOOD. TEL: 97456606.

Open Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm (Thu 9pm), Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 10am-5pm.
Best buys: Atlantic salmon steaks, above, $20.99/kg; green large
prawns $24.99/kg; small snapper $14.99/kg.

Mourad Arotin, known as Mac, extols the virtues of fish as he stands
in front of the long, brightly lit counter of his shop.

“You can eat as much as you like and it’s good for you – as long as
it’s not polluted,” he begins.

“How many things can you say that about? And look at the variety. How
many varieties of beef or chicken can you get at the butcher? I’d
need a month to eat each one here in my shop. And there are so many
ways to cook it.”

He stops to take breath and it occurs to me that Arotin, an Armenian
who came to Australia in 1976, is a novelty. In Sydney, there aren’t
many fish retailers from Armenia – it’s a landlocked country, after
all.

Arotin, however, is as passionate about seafood as only a late convert
can be. He started in 1999 with a shop in Bankstown, then bought this
one in Burwood in 2000.

He began his working life as an electronics engineer who went into IT
and ended up managing a subsidiary of a US company in Dubai for six
years. When he returned to Australia, he could not rustle up a
similar, high-level job despite nearly 20 years’ experience. “My age
was against me and I was only in my early 40s,” he says.

So he looked around for a business he could franchise and came up
with the idea of fish. “Nobody at that time was franchising seafood,”
he says.

He has since learnt why: it’s hard to find franchisees who can handle
such a perishable product. He persisted for four years, then sold the
Bankstown shop in 2003 to the Di Costi chain.

He kept this shop because he loves fish. He no longer does the
filleting himself or goes to the markets but he prowls around the
display like a tiger.

At one end of the counter are the whole specimens – snapper, rainbow
trout and silver bream – favoured by Asian customers, who make up
about 50 per cent of his clientele.

There is barbounia, fancied by the Greeks and Italians; red spot
whiting, sought by the Lebanese; and the universal leatherjacket.
Prawns sell well here, both green and cooked. So do salmon steaks and
salmon sushi, as do the fillets from sea perch to ling.

He has slimy and spanish mackerel, mullet and redfish, local mussels
and blue swimmer crabs, nanato and local calamari. An old bloke gets
some squid then asks for more.

Arotin serves shoppers of habit but he likes to try new things
himself. “When I get something new, I act as though I know nothing
about fish. I throw it on the barbecue and if it comes up well, I
know it’s fail-safe and will sell.”

His next idea is to rev up the deep-fryer and cook gourmet fish and
chips. Gourmet seafood could be his new franchise venture.