Fish mongress earns $200,000 a yr in Massachusetts

Laura Foley Ramsden’s ardour for fish is in her DNA.

The 53-year-old is a fourth-generation fish mongress in Massachusetts. Her great-grandfather based Foley Fish again in 1906, and it has been within the household since. Ramsden and her husband purchased it from her dad and mom in 2004.

Although they offered the corporate to specialty meals distributor Cooks’ Warehouse in 2021, Ramsden and her husband stay actively concerned with the enterprise her household began.

Through the years, Rasmden has performed a job in almost each facet of the Foley Fish enterprise, from packing fish to constructing a social media presence. Her annual wage began at $23,000 contemporary out of school, and she or he earned $200,000 in 2021, when the corporate offered. Her official title was most lately VP of gross sales, however she’s higher referred to as the fish mongress.

Although the world has modified lots since her great-grandfather began promoting fish, Ramsden says the enterprise nonetheless appears fairly related: “We’re actually simply centered on getting the fish off the boat reduce, packed as rapidly as doable and turned again round to our clients.”

Ramsden clocked her first hours for Foley Fish through the summer time she was 15. “I labored in the future packing fish, making containers, opening tins, and I believed it was actually chilly and actually lengthy and actually terrible and instructed my dad I modified my thoughts and I needed to be a bus woman in any case at a restaurant.”

However her dad instructed her Foleys do not stop. His phrases caught: Apart from a short stint in public relations, she’s been with the corporate ever since.

Grateful to her dad and mom for making her work on the plant flooring, Ramsden has realized about almost each function inside the enterprise. From packing and transport to shoveling ice, she’s gained a wide range of abilities out of necessity.

“Once you run a small enterprise, you simply do what must be performed,” she says.

Many assume the corporate’s head fishmonger can be male. Folks have even gone as far as to ask if Ramsden’s brothers can be those to take over the household enterprise. However this was the trail she needed, and she or he’s proud to be a lady in a male-dominated trade. 

“When my mother joined the enterprise, she was the fish mongress. And so then when my husband and I purchased the enterprise, I used to be the fish mongress,” she says.

Ramsden hasn’t had issues as a lady in a male-dominated trade, she says. She’s armed herself with data and expertise to be a useful resource and collaborator for her male colleagues.

And being a fish mongress has by no means meant much less work for her than a person would tackle. In Ramsden’s function, every single day can look completely different relying on what must get performed, from package deal design to product evaluations.

“In a small enterprise, you are sort of carrying a whole lot of hats, and as a fish mongress, I undoubtedly put on a whole lot of hats,” she says.