PM Aquatic Imports Ltd has ceased wholesaling all its marine livestock and closed its saltwater holding facility in Manchester, UK. In a dramatic fire sale that began this week, PM announced to their customer base via email that they were shutting it down.
“With massive price rises for energy and fuel, we have decided to close down our wholesale facility,” the email read. “We are having a closing down sale of the thousands of corals we have in stock.”
PM started off nearly twenty years ago as a fish importer and consolidator, with close proximity to Manchester airport. Due to customer demand, they opened their first marine wholesale facility four years ago where customers could opt to buy full boxes via import in the normal way or individual fish, corals, and critters via wholesale. It also gave retailers the chance to hand pick.
Some insanely good corals passed through PM in the last four years and at its peak, the facility was receiving 100 box coral shipments, held over 2000 coral colonies, and over 2000 individual heads of Torch coral, Euphyllia glabrescens. There were nine staff at the facility and many sales records were broken despite the global pandemic. It was a coral candy store.
Challenges
Brexit prevented exports of hard corals out of the UK however, the pandemic canceled flights and air freight rocketed as Covid 19 spread around the world. PM survived the first total coral ban from Indonesia and the ongoing Hawaii ban, but the ban on all things good from the Great Barrier Reef – a unique ban on Queensland that only applies to the UK – and the massive price increase on everything from electricity to fuel, packaging to the corals themselves meant they took a difficult decision and shut it down.
The UK is also the heartland of Tropical Marine Centre, the largest marine wholesaler in Europe, with three livestock facilities in the UK and a skill set, supply chain, and reputation that spans some fifty years. There is no real number two marine wholesaler in the UK, such is TMC’s domination and despite many trying and failing over the decades, they maintain a huge and loyal retail customer base, and an unrivaled marine livestock offering in the UK.
PM Aquatic Imports will continue its long-standing direct import and consolidation business, bringing in tropical, coldwater, and marine fish, plants, coral, and critters from around the world.
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