NEW BEDFORD — Even in a city like New Bedford, where commercial fishing boats line the harbor, most people buy seafood from a middleman.

By the time seafood reaches consumers, it has already been bought and sold — and its price marked up — at least once.

Starting Friday, local residents will have another option: Fleet Fisheries, a longtime seafood wholesale operation, will open a fish market at its South End facility that will sell seafood directly to consumers at near wholesale prices.

"We're trying to cut the middleman out, and we're trying to create jobs for the area," said Virginia Vinjerud, who owns Fleet Fisheries with her husband.

Almost all of the seafood sold at Fisherman's Market, located in a corner of the three-year-old Blackmer Street processing facility, will come from one of Fleet Fisheries' 15 boats, according to general manager Shawn Souza.

"You're as close to buying off the boat as you can get," he said.

The prices charged in the market will fluctuate with the wholesale prices: If Fleet Fisheries pays less, consumers will pay less, Souza said.

"If the boat price drops $2, why aren't you going down $2?" he asked of supermarket pricing practices. "We are going to make it affordable for people to buy seafood."

On Tuesday, the market's long glass display case was stocked with swordfish and cod, crabs and lobsters, haddock and scallops, all neatly arrayed on a bed of crushed ice in a test run for Friday's opening.

Through the clear panels walling off the market from the rest of the plant, workers could be seen processing fish, an intentional design detail, according to Vinjerud.

"You can see the way the seafood's handled," she said. "Why would you go to the supermarket to buy frozen seafood? ... Here you know where the seafood's from."

On Tuesday, the lobster would have sold for about $3.75 a pound, while cod and haddock would have been about $3.85, Souza said.

At Kyler's Catch Seafood Market on Washburn Street, this week lobsters were selling for $4.99 to $6.99 a pound, while cod was $8.99 and haddock was $9.99.

Swordfish on Wednesday was selling for $8.99 a pound at Shaw's on State Road in Dartmouth; at Fisherman's Market, swordfish would have sold for $4.95 a pound.

Shaw's was selling lobsters for $7.99 to $9.99 a pound.

"We're going to work on a smaller margin and try to get people here regularly," Souza said.

Fleet has boats that fish for scallops, lobsters, shrimp, swordfish and tuna; Souza said he would also purchase other products from non-Fleet boats for the market, depending on customer demand.

To start, the market, located at 20 Blackmer St., will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Fridays and 10 a.m till 4 p.m. on Saturdays, that might expand depending on customer response, Souza said.

"We'd love to be open every day," he said.

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