When properly stored, seafood that has been flash-frozen within minutes or hours of harvest is virtually indistinguishable from fresh seafood, offering equivalent flavor and texture.

As Jane Brody, longtime food/nutrition columnist for The New York Times says, "The freshest seafood is that which has been frozen shortly after harvest and remains that way until cooked."

And renowned seafood chef/author Barton Seaver agrees: “The technology of freezing seafood has evolved to the point where the quality of frozen seafood is comparable to, if not better than, fresh fish.”

Vital Choice wild and eco-farmed seafood is flash-frozen within minutes or hours of harvest, using ultra-low temperatures to capture its first-caught quality and flavor.

We store our flash-frozen seafood at -10° F or below and pack it in dry ice for shipping to customers. As numerous customer reviews attest, our frozen seafood tastes fresh-caught — in fact, it typically tastes much fresher than the fresh and previously frozen seafood sold in supermarkets.

However, frozen fish must be stored properly — at 0°F or below and not in a “self-defrosting” freezer* — to avoid oxidation of its fragile omega-3 fats, which causes the “fishy” smell that indicates rancidity.

The best place to store fish is a good quality chest or upright freezer capable of maintaining a stable sub-zero temperature.

*NOTE: Self-defrosting freezers go through a regular thawing/freezing cycle that rapidly degrades the quality and flavor of frozen seafood.