Frequently Asked Questions

It’s so simple: click ‘Sign Up’ at the top of this page and follow the instructions. If you have questions, just drop us an email at [email protected] or call us at (978) 865-3169.

Cape Ann Fresh Catch has no lengthy contracts or commitments. You may cancel at any time (with two business days notice before your delivery day), even after receiving only one delivery or picking up one order. There is currently no method to cancel your account online; just reach out to us and be sure to include the full name on your account.

You are also able to “pause” or “hold” individual deliveries with notice when you are going to be out of the area or simply need to take a break. See more information for pausing your deliveries here.

Reactivating your account is easy! Just reach out to let us know when you are ready to start eating fresh fish again and we can restart your account in a matter of minutes (assuming you did not previously request a complete deletion of your account/records).

We send out a Catch of the Day email each morning to all of our customers. For those with subscriptions for 1lb, 2lb, or whole fish shares, the Catch of the Day email will tell you the species of the fish you will receive and the boat from which the fish was caught.

In addition, our Weekly Special is posted on social media (Facebook and Instagram), our website (see our Marketplace/Fresh Fish and Seafood/Weekly Special) and in our weekly email newsletter the weekend prior to delivery. The newsletter includes announcements related to our deliveries and pickup sites as well as promotions, blogs and news related to our mission.

We reserve the right to change the Catch of the Day or Weekly Special depending on availability and quality as we strive to ensure you receive only the freshest fish. As always, any changes will be communicated via email and social media.

The Marketplace is where you can select any of our seafood options as additional one-time purchases to add to your recurring delivery. You will also find our weekly specials, flash sales, gift certificates and other items for one-time purchase in the Marketplace.

In order to make a one-time purchase, you must have already purchased a subscription and opened an account. To find the Marketplace, go into your member account and select Marketplace at the top of the page.

Cape Ann Fresh Catch accepts major credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover) including debit cards that also act as credit cards. We also accept ACH or eCheck where the funds are deducted from your bank account.

We do not currently accept EBT or SNAP, but we’re checking into this for the future.

Yes! If you want to gift someone some celebratory seafood, head over to the marketplace where you can select a gift certificate of your choosing.

We currently partner with over 30 sites in the greater Boston area. To see our list of current pick-up sites, select Sign-Up from the top right corner of our website. The first page of our sign-up process lists our pick-up sites and the days we deliver to them.

We are regularly pursuing new partnerships with local businesses and community locales to make it more convenient for our members to pick up their fish. Once a new site is added to our existing routes, we will announce it on our website and social media.

Please contact us at 978-865-3169 or send us an email to [email protected]

First, call your pick-up site. Although remaining fish at the end of a delivery day is usually donated to local food pantries or food banks, your order may still be on ice in the site’s cooler the following morning . Since we pay our fishermen upfront, we can not reimburse you if you miss a pickup. Please arrange for substitutes–family, friends, neighbors–to pick up your fish if you can’t.

Yes! Cape Ann Fresh Catch has been a staple vendor at seasonal Farmers’ Markets in Beverly, Gloucester, Ipswich, Annisquam, Haverhill, East Boston and others. We also have year-round pop-ups at Codman Farm on Wednesdays and Sandy Bay Provisions in Rockport on Fridays. 

If you select home delivery, you will be asked to designate where our delivery driver should leave your fish. Please consider the location of the sun and accessibility to dogs and other animals when selecting a spot. We highly recommend you leave a small hard plastic cooler out for us. We will place your package of fish inside the cooler and add some fresh ice, if necessary.

We drive a different route each day, 5 days a week between 10 am to 6 pm depending on volume and weather/traffic conditions.

We service the following areas by day of the week:
Monday: Auburndale, Braintree, Canton, Dedham, Dover, East Walpole, Foxborough, Medfield, Millis, Milton, Natick, Needham, Newton, Norwood, Quincy, Randolph, Sharon, Sherborn, Waban, Walpole, Wellesley, Westwood, Weymouth

Tuesday: Boston, Brighton, Brookline, Cambridge, Charlestown, Chelsea, Dorchester, Everett, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Revere, Roxbury, Saugus, Somerville, Winthrop

Wednesday: Arlington, Bedford, Belmont, Burlington, Concord, Lexington, Lincoln, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield, Waltham, Watertown, Winchester, Woburn

Thursday: Amesbury, Andover, Beverly, Byfield, Boxford, Danvers, Essex, Georgetown, Groveland, Hamilton, Haverhill, Ipswich, Lynn, Lynnfield, Manchester, Marblehead, Middleton, Newbury, Newburyport, North Andover, North Reading, Peabody, Plum Island, Rowley, Salem, Swampscott, Salisbury, Topsfield, Wenham, West Newbury

Friday: Ashland, Acton, Ayer, Billerica, Bolton, Boxborough, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Framingham, Groton, Harvard, Hudson, Littleton, Lowell, Marlborough, Maynard, Natick, Southborough, Stow, Sudbury, Wayland, Westford, Weston, Wilmington

We deliver to different towns each day of the week. However, depending on how close you live to our delivery route on a different day, you may be able to switch to that day. Please call or email us to see what we can do.

Weather, especially winter in the northeast, is unpredictable. We will, whenever delivery schedules are affected, notify impacted customers via e-mail or social media. For this reason, it’s important to keep your account information as up to date and follow us on Instagram and/or Facebook.

Whether the whole fish is gutted, gilled or scaled depends on the species. The “roundfish” like cod, pollock and haddock will have their guts and gills removed. Hake and monkfish will be headless and gutless. The “small fish” like whiting and redfish, and the “flatfish ”—the goofy looking ones with both eyes on the same side—will be wholly intact. Redfish will be scaled.

Yes. The local fishermen from whom we buy our fish are subject to strict regulations formulated by the Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). These regulations are aimed at rebuilding all fish stocks and establishing enduring, healthy ecosystems in the waters they fish. CAFC offers consumers the opportunity to support a small diversified fleet who have a strong personal connection to the sea and are driven by the incentive to protect the ocean environment for future generations.

Our sourced seafood (e.g., salmon, mussels) and seafood specials (e.g., shrimp) are responsibly sourced from fisheries certified for their sustainable practices.

If you have more questions regarding sustainability, please refer to our previous newsletters and blog or contact us directly.

Remove their heads and store them in a vacuum sealed bag. Here’s a neat trick if you don’t have a vacuum sealer – place the shrimp in a zip lock bag and seal the zip leaving a half inch unlocked. Submerge the bag in a large bowl of water forcing the air out of the bag, just until the water line reaches the unzipped seal. Seal the opening with as little air in the bag as possible.

Yes.  Before cooking, you should remove the thin, purple, iridescent membrane underneath the monkfish skin.  The membrane adheres snugly to the flesh and shrinks during cooking, constricting the monkish filet and misshaping it. If your filet still has the membrane attached, using your fingers, grasp the membrane and pull it away from the fish. In most cases the membrane can be removed in one piece. There are videos available online that may be helpful.

Worms are a natural occurrence in fish, just as insects are to fruits and vegetables. You don’t see them on fish you get from supermarkets because by the time they get through the distribution chain, they have already been removed or the freezing and storage process has killed the worms. So in an odd way, the worms are a sign that you are getting fresh fish – much like the worms on the broccoli we pick from our gardens or the stains on farm fresh eggs. We deworm our filets before packing but may miss one or two on occasion.

Fish become affected with worms when they eat small crustaceans. Thorough cooking of fish renders these parasites totally harmless (fish is thoroughly cooked when it reaches an internal temperature of 140 degrees, the fish flakes when poked with a fork and it has lost its translucent color). You can also hard-salt fish (curing) or freeze it for 24 hours to kill worms.

If you want to check for worms and remove them prior to cooking, start by holding your filet up to a light source (e.g., sun, light bulb, light box, etc). This is called candling. In cod or monkfish, worms will look like dark round spots about the size of a 1/4″ button. In flat fish they appear as white spots.

To remove a worm, insert the point of the knife at the spot and dig out the worm. Chefs often keep a pair of needle nose pliers in the kitchen for this purpose. Most worms tend to reside around the stomach part of the filet.