About Us

Marrfish was born from a long standing and rich fishing heritage.

Going back nearly 150 years, the Marr family were pioneers of the trawling industry in the late 1800s, adopting new technologies and practices across the fishing industry making conditions better and improving quality of caught fish by trialing freezing at sea.

Fast forward 142 years and Marrfish was born. Drawing upon the knowledge and access the Marr family has to the UK’s top fishing waters and fish, we now supply top restaurants and hotels with the freshest fish.

Find out more about our varied and expert heritage.

We’ve been supplying quality fresh fish to the UK’s top restaurants and hotels since 2011. We believe in the quality of our fish, which comes direct from our boats, and we believe in our fishermen.

Explore key points in our group and company’s history…

Marrfish & Andrew Marr Int History

1860

Joseph Marr, based in Hull, opened his own fish smokehouse curing fresh locally caught fish by renting two fish curers.

1870

Joseph Marr purchased the fishing smack The Adelaide and began to extend the operations of his company.

1891

Joseph purchased his first steam trawler.

1902

Joseph Marr passes away. The name was changed to J Marr & Son with Joseph’s Son James now in control.

1913

The company moves to Fleetwood and now have 32 steam trawlers with 11 more vessels on order.

1914

The Marr family trawlers are called into active service during WWI.

1916

Tragically, James Marr passes away.

1919

Alan Marr returned from war duty and took over the running of the company.

1925

Alan Marr passes away and Alan’s twin brothers, Leslie and Geoffrey, took over the running of the company.

1934

J Marr & Son moves operations back to Hull after an absence of 36 years. Trawlers are still launched from Fleetwood.

1939

World War II erupts across Europe and two of the Marrs’ trawlers were sunk by German gunfire.

1940

The entire fleet of Marr boats have either been destroyed or have been called into active war service.

1941

The company headquarters are destroyed by a landmine along with a portion of the surrounding docks.

1945

By the end of the war, just six Marr trawlers remained in operation. The rest having been damaged or sunk during the conflict.

1957

The Marr empire continued to grow with the acquisition of Andrew Johnson Knudtzon Ltd. A new 6,000 ton capacity cold storage warehouse opened as part of the acquisition.

1957

British trawlers are escorted by the Navy boats due to the first “Cod War” causing tensions in the waters when Iceland extended it’s fishing radius to 12 miles. The British trawlers were under constant harassment by Icelandic gunboats.

1959

Andrew Marr helps to pioneer the ability to freeze fish at sea – a concept never achieved before.

1962

The trawler, The Junella was launched. She could either freeze her entire catch or store fish chilled in the more traditional way. The Junella cost £350,000 and had a capacity of 300 tonnes.

1963

Leslie Marr passes away.

1969

Geoffrey Marr passes away.

1970

A new and younger team start to emerge at the company and order 21 new fishing trawlers, demonstrating a faith in the industry and the company going forward.

1976

New laws were introduced and 200 mile fishing limits came into force, meaning many fishermen were unable to fish in the rich and populated Icelandic waters. Many vessel owners sold up and quit the industry during this time.

1976

Alan and Andrew Marr converted some of their vessels to be able to catch Mackerel and Herring off the UK shore.

1976

A new subsiduary, J Marr (Seafoods) was created as an export business to deliver fish to West Africa, Russia and the Far East.

1986

Alan and Andrew Marr decided to restructure the company due to family succession and a de-merger took place. The main business now became Andrew Marr International.

2011

Marrfish was created with the view of delivering our fresh quality fish to the hospitality and restaurant trade.

2017

Marrfish opens Marrfish Grimsby, our purpose built filleting complex in the North of England.

Marrfish – Bishop’s Stortford

Our HQ in Bishop’s Stortford is perfectly located between London and Cambridge. This is our HQ and the main hub of our operations.

Our headquarters, located in Bishop’s Stortford, is the main hub of our operations. It houses our sales teams, admin teams, management and marketing teams. We also have a shift of skilled blockmen located here who prepare, clean and fillet our fish throughout the night.

All of our deliveries are dispatched from our Bishop’s Stortford site and each morning our sales team and our blockmen work closely together preparing our customers’ orders.

Our sales department work with and handle our fish as we feel it’s important for them to assess the quality and condition. This means our sales team know our fish, they understand our fish and in turn are best placed to advise you on any aspect of our products.

Marrfish – Grimsby

Our processing complex was purpose built in Grimsby in 2017. Here our skilled blockmen work throughout the night everyday ensuring your fish is prepared in a consistent way.

Marrfish Grimsby was opened in 2017 as a support hub to the main operation. We have a team of around 10 skilled blockmen working day and night to process our fish and seafood.

Our teams work tirelessly to ensure our fish is perfectly trimmed, filleted and processed ready for distribution to our customers. We remove bones, descale and clean the fish.

Marrfish Grimsby process most of our fish as this is an important link in our logistics chain. Our fish arrives from the boats in Scotland and is sent straight into our Grimsby processing complex where our blockmen inspect and prepare the fish for filleting.

Once our fish leaves Grimsby it is sent straight to our main HQ in Bishop’s Stortford where we cut the fish into required portions and process our customer orders.

Marrfish Grimsby is an extremely important link in our chain as most of our blockmen are based there. It’s the skill and expertise our of blockmen that means your fish is the correct weight, correct portion size and has been inspected for quality twice before it arrives on your menu.