SeaQuest

At this year’s Inter­na­tional Boston Seafood Show, look for ver­sa­til­ity and afford­abil­ity to be the catch of the day.

By Richard Turcsik

In a move rem­i­nis­cent of that clas­sic Fol­gers Crys­tals instant cof­fee com­mer­cial, Josh DeChellis, the exec­u­tive chef at New York’s famed La Fonda del Sol seafood restau­rant has secretly replaced many of the key seafood items used in the restaurant’s award-winning Span­ish cui­sine with Japan­ese sub­sti­tutes. Yel­low­tail has replaced tuna in the grilled taco appe­tizer; shell-less crab legs sur­round the roasted cod; a diced Japan­ese fish cake is served with spicy chorizo, lentils and a poached egg; and the Span­ish paella rice is fla­vored with salted squid innards and gar­nished with fresh squid.

“Most paella rice is just a vehi­cle to place the seafood on, but the way the fla­vor of the squid innards comes out and per­me­ates the paella; it can just do won­ders to a dish like this,” DeChellis tells Gro­cery Head­quar­ters. “With Japan­ese seafoods you can make remark­ably suc­cess­ful dishes with dis­tinct, unique fla­vors and textures.”

DeChellis’ restau­rant was one of two New York eater­ies cho­sen by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Forestry and Fish­eries of Japan (MAFF) to show­case Japan­ese seafood. It’s all part of a cam­paign to increase con­sump­tion of Japan­ese seafood in the Amer­i­can diet. Ten of Japan’s lead­ing seafood pro­duc­ers will be exhibit­ing their wares at the Japan­ese Pavil­ion at the Inter­na­tional Boston Seafood Show.

“The major­ity of the prod­ucts are har­vested in Japan­ese waters and all of the ingre­di­ents are han­dled and processed in Japan,” says Hide­nobu Miz­uno, con­sul of the Con­sulate Gen­eral of Japan in New York. “MAFF has launched a global cam­paign to boost the pop­u­lar­ity of lesser-known Japan­ese ingre­di­ents. While many Amer­i­cans are famil­iar with cer­tain aspects of Ja­p­anese cui­sine, such as sushi and tem­pura, our cam­paign aims to expand the Amer­i­can public’s aware­ness of other areas of Japan­ese dining.”

Louisiana is about to embark on a sim­i­lar effort. The Bayou State is launch­ing a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram that seeks to edu­cate con­sumers about its shrimp and other seafood. “The whole premise is to get our prod­uct out of the com­modi­ties mar­ket and have a pre­mium brand­ing, much like a Niman Ranch pork,” says Ewell M. Smith, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Louisiana Seafood Pro­mo­tion & Mar­keting Board in New Orleans. “We can­not com­pete on price against coun­tries like Viet­nam and China, but we can com­pete all day long on qual­ity, her­itage, the story, taste and the process.”

Hook­ing new customers

To increase con­sump­tion seafood mar­keters are step­ping up the advertising.

“I still think pro­mo­tion is key in seafood, from a lot of dif­fer­ent facets,” says Larry Andrews, retail mar­ket­ing direc­tor of Seattle-based Alaska Seafood Mar­ket­ing Insti­tute (ASMI). “That can be every­thing from try­ing to incite some­one to try a prod­uct with a cents-off coupon to pro­mot­ing based on health, fla­vor pro­file or prepa­ra­tion. They’re all dri­ving folks to pick up product.”

Alaska is pro­mot­ing its seafood through the www.cookitfrozen.com web­site. “We have six videos that tell peo­ple how to poach, sauté, steam and grill. We are try­ing to really aid retail­ers and con­sumers by show­ing them some sim­ple prepa­ra­tion meth­ods they can fol­low,” Andrews says.

To make it even sim­pler, ASMI has cre­ated an iPhone app where con­sumers can watch videos, select recipes and cre­ate a shop­ping list. “You can actu­ally take your iPhone and go shop­ping and check things off your shop­ping list as you walk the store,“ Andrews says.

Andrews sees more pre­pared and semi-prepared items hit­ting the seafood depart­ment fresh and frozen cases. “Dif­fer­ent eth­nic pro­files are pop­u­lar, espe­cially items that are already sauced and mar­i­nated. At least on the frozen side that is tak­ing the guess­work out for con­sumers and mak­ing it easy and con­ve­nient,” he says.

Col­or­ful trout

That’s exactly what Buhl, Idaho-based Clear Springs Foods is doing with its Seafood Per­fec­tions line of trout, swai (Pan­ga­sius) and Mahi dishes.

“Rain­bow trout as a species is begin­ning to get a lit­tle bit bet­ter demand,” says Chris Howard, direc­tor of mar­ket­ing. “A lot of that has to do with the price of salmon.”

Eleven dif­fer­ent Seafood Per­fec­tions dishes will be sam­pled and dis­played at the show, includ­ing Trout Cake with Roasted Veg­eta­bles, Almondine-Style, the kid-aimed Rain­bow Trout Trea­sures and Rain­bow Trout Slid­ers. “They are frozen and usu­ally sold near the fresh seafood counter, but some are going into the frozen seafood aisle as well,” Howard says.

Baltimore-based Phillips Foods, Inc. is focus­ing on its core prod­ucts, namely crab and crab cakes, at this year’s show. “We have done food­ser­vice research that shows crab cakes are still very strong on menus,” says Honey Kon­i­coff, vice pres­i­dent, mar­ket­ing. “You would think that with the reces­sion you’d see a decline in crab cakes, but they are actu­ally as strong as ever. Upscale restau­rants have fully embraced crab cakes and now you’re see­ing them in mid­scale and even some QSR. That they are pen­e­trat­ing the QSR mar­ket says a lot. It means crab cakes are high on con­sumers’ radar screens.”

That’s why at this year’s show Phillips is pro­mot­ing its new Deli Pre­pared Cakes, fully cooked, deli-compatible crab cakes. “We believe there is oppor­tu­nity for more seafood in deli pre­pared,” Kon­i­coff says. “These are fully cooked so they can be sold in the deli counter. They are shipped to the retailer frozen, slacked at the shelf and sold to the con­sumer refrigerated.”

Smoked salmon

With its famous Surimi, Belling­ham, Wash.-based Trans-Ocean Prod­ucts, Inc. is also a major player in the refrig­er­ated case. It’s now increas­ing its pres­ence with its Atlantic Smoked, Black Pep­per Atlantic Smoked and Wild Sock­eye salmon that it will be show­cas­ing in Boston. “They are all cold-smoked, all-natural, so there are no preser­v­a­tives,” says Mark Aaron Ross, South­east & Gulf Coast regional busi­ness devel­op­ment manager/corporate chef in Trans-Ocean’s Chapel Hill, N.C. office.

“We launched them last year in test mar­kets and they became the number-one salmon, so now we are going national,” Ross says. “They are shipped frozen and slacked out.”

Trans-Ocean is also enter­ing the frozen shrimp busi­ness with what offi­cials call “no-chem/natural” shrimp in four cooked and raw vari­eties that will be sold in one-pound bags.

It is also using the show to debut its Hokkaido scal­lops, imported from Japan. “They are like the best eat­ing scal­lop there is,” Ross says.

Think sus­tain­able

Accord­ing to Gavin Gib­bons, direc­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the National Fish­eries Insti­tute in McLean, Va., sus­tain­abil­ity is a key trend in 2010. “There is a trend of stores say­ing they are look­ing at respon­si­bly man­aged fish­eries and are going to do their best to source from those fish­eries,” he says. “They are tak­ing a really respon­si­ble view of sus­tain­abil­ity, as opposed to say­ing there’s a one-size-fits-all solu­tion to seafood sus­tain­abil­ity issues.”

Another hot topic in 2010 is net weight, says Zach Krokos, national sales asso­ciate for Kirk­land, Wash.-based Sea Port. “With peo­ple being more con­ser­v­a­tive in their buy­ing power, net weight has kind of come back and reared its ugly head as an issue again,” he says. Sea Port is a 100% net weight house, mean­ing if you buy a case of Sea Port fish that weighs 10 pounds a retailer gets 10 pounds of fish. Other fish houses might have a 90% net weight, mean­ing the box con­tains only nine pounds of prod­uct. “The dif­fer­ence that you are pay­ing for is ice,” he says. “On higher end prod­ucts, like lob­ster, that can be a sub­stan­tial price for ice. It is an issue that really needs addressing.”