Most seafood enquiries are a sentence: “Do you have cod?” The reply is another sentence, and then eight emails follow to establish what was actually being discussed. This guide sets out what to put in an enquiry so the first reply is a usable offer.
The five blocks
1. Product
The irreducible fields:
- Species, with the scientific name where any ambiguity exists — Gadus morhua, not “cod”, if saithe or Alaska pollock might be substituted.
- Condition — fresh, frozen, frozen at sea, salted, dried, smoked.
- Presentation — WR, HOG, H&G, J-cut, fillet, loin, portion, split, cluster.
- Cut detail — trim level, skin, bones, pin bones, belly depth, tail treatment.
- Grading system and band — and name the system, not just the band.
- Grade — Superior/Ordinary/Production, or a class name for stockfish.
- Freezing history — never frozen, single frozen, double frozen.
- Packing — carton or pail format, inner packaging, interleaved or IQF.
- Weight basis — net of glaze, drained weight, or net weight, stated explicitly.
2. Volume
- Quantity and unit.
- Whether this is a one-off or a recurring programme.
- Expected annual volume if it is a programme — it changes the price.
3. Delivery
- Destination country, and the city, port or airport.
- The Incoterm with the named place.
- Required delivery date or window.
- Transport preference: air, road or sea.
4. Compliance
- Certificates required — MSC, ASC and any scheme claim must be requested at order, not afterwards.
- Health certificate and the destination market’s certificate model.
- Catch certificate for wild-caught product.
- Any country-specific import documentation.
- Private label requirements.
5. Buyer
- Company, country, website.
- Named contact with email and phone.
- VAT or company registration number, which speeds up first-time onboarding.
Attach your own specification
If you already have a written specification — a PDF, a spreadsheet, a customer’s requirement document — attach it. It is faster than retyping, it is unambiguous, and it means the offer is made against your document rather than against an interpretation of it.
The test of a good RFQ
Two suppliers receiving it should return offers you can put in a spreadsheet and compare on one row. If you have to call either of them to establish what they meant, something was missing.
A worked example
Product: Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), farmed Norway. Fresh HOG, Superior grade, 5–6 kg weight class, never frozen. 20 kg EPS with ice. Volume: 2 pallets per week, recurring, estimated 90 tonnes per year. Delivery: CIP Paris Charles de Gaulle. First delivery week 46. Road. Compliance: ASC Chain of Custody required, certificate code on invoice. Health certificate. Spec sheet with each consignment. Buyer: [company], France, VAT [number]. Contact: [name], [email], [phone].
Fifteen lines. That enquiry gets a real price.