January 7, 2012 — Delaware Valley Fish Co.'s 40-year history is one of triumphs and agonies. It involves acquisitions and an accidental death, bankruptcy, and broadening markets, thanks to the middle-class boom in Asia. There are worries over regulatory restrictions, and the shrinking ranks of fishermen, and preparations for a next generation of operators.
It's one helluva fish story.
It began in 1972, when Kratchman's grandfather David and father, Sheldon, opened the company in a 4,000-square-foot warehouse at 12th and Bainbridge Streets in South Philadelphia.
David Kratchman knew fish as a truck driver for 25 years with Superior Fish Co.
Sheldon Kratchman had owned a couple of fruit stores in the city. Newly divorced, "I wanted to start afresh," he said last week, recalling his reasons for wading into the eel business.
At the time, there was just one market for eel: Europe. Sheldon Kratchman went there and secured business, he said, by paying "a nickel a pound more" for eels and selling them for less than the competition.
Back in Philadelphia, people "would shake their heads" when they heard what line he was in.
"We had more recognition in Europe than we had in Philly," Sheldon Kratchman said.
Barry was just 9 when he started learning the family business, chasing the eels that flopped off the table during the sizing, or grading, process.
"I used to walk around with a little net and pick the eels off the floor," said the president of the company, now 49.
Joining it wasn't his initial career plan. While at Pennsylvania State University in the mid-1980s, he majored in hotel/restaurant management.
By the time he graduated, his father needed help. He had been running Delaware Valley Fish alone since David Kratchman died in 1982 after an accident driving one of the company's trucks.
Read the full story at the Philadelphia Inquirer