So I’ve been running a small delivery operation out of Umm Al Quwain for the past couple of years, mostly supplying hammour and kingfish to a few local restaurants, and I kept running into this frustrating problem where my catch would sometimes develop this slight chemical odor after being stored overnight. I went through the whole checklist thinking it was my ice quality or maybe the cleaning solution I was using, but nothing seemed to fix it until I had a chat with an old timer at the fish market who pointed out that the plastic itself can sometimes be the culprit if it’s not graded properly. That got me down a rabbit hole of research and I ended up reading through a really helpful breakdown of storage practices UAE seafood distribution businesses rely on to keep their product pristine, which made me realize I’d been cutting corners with cheap containers that weren’t actually suitable for direct contact with food. I finally bit the bullet and sourced some proper food grade plastic crates for fish distribution, and honestly the difference is night and day. No more weird smells, no more discoloration on the lighter colored fish, and my regular clients have actually commented that the quality seems more consistent now. I feel a bit silly for not paying attention to this earlier but I guess you live and you learn in this business, has anyone else experienced something similar with off-gassing or contamination from lower grade materials?
