One fish, two fish, old fish, new fish

Unique species and tastes are luring shoppers to the seafood case. Bronzini, Barramondi, Cobia and Black Grouper. Those are just some of the species retailers are baiting their seafood cases with in hopes of hooking shoppers’ attention—and dollars. Items like these set retailers apart from their competition, says Brian Diffenderfer, director of meat and seafood for Daymon Worldwide, based in Stamford, Conn. “It keeps customers looking for something unique and coming back for more.” Lesser-known species may have that “wow” factor and draw in window-shoppers, but more often than not consumers will actually purchase a fish that they are familiar with—such as salmon, tuna, trout and halibut—and in today’s economy, one that they will get value from. “The consumer is being very particular about what they buy,” says Don Riffle, vice president of sales and marketing for Clear Springs Foods, the Buhl, Idaho-based producer of farm-raised rainbow trout. “They want to make sure they are getting good value. We think we our rainbow trout is a good value.” Of course value is measured in different ways. Take salmon, for example. Larry Andrews, retail marketing director out of the Seattle office for the Juneau, Alaska-based Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI), says there are five species of salmon, all of which have different tastes, textures and price points. “Wild harvested king salmon can be a fairly pricey commitment, then there is something like keta, a great, mild-flavored salmon at a completely different price point,” he says. “The same is true with white fish. There is halibut, but also Alaska rockfish or Alaska cod; those will all be at different price points or even different product forms.” Value-added and easy-to-prepare products are also trending in the seafood case. Clear Springs has addressed both of those trends with new size offerings of its Clear Cuts Natural Fillets product and its encrusted rainbow trout fillets. The Clear Cuts products are boneless fillets that can be cooked on a pan, grill or in an oven, says Riffle, “which will be available to retailers in 4-, 5- and 6-ounces. That way if a retailer chooses to merchandise by the piece, they have three price points; it just expands on what we can offer the consumer.” The encrusted fillets are shipped to retailers frozen and are engineered so that the crustings stay crunchy and are eye-appealing, says Riffle. “These can be merchandised frozen or fresh,” he adds. “We have some retailers that merchandize them in the fresh case and some that tray-wrap them and merchandize them in the freezer within the seafood section.” There are five encrusted rainbow trout products available: Parmesan Crusted, Pecan Crusted, Sun-dried Tomato & Roasted Garlic, Tortilla and Crunchy Potato. The line is being supported with aggressive advertising support scheduled to run each month starting in September. “The idea is to get trial with the consumer,” says Riffle. “We probably won’t have all five encrusted products with retailers at one time. We will likely rotate them so consumers can have choices.” Much of the industry out of Alaska is developing value-added products forms as well. For example, Andrews cites Alaska Pollock as a fish that, although in the cod family, is less expensive than cod and can be used for fish and chips or made into a burger. “The industry is always looking at ways to maximize the utilization of different species and through that comes a wide variety of price offerings,” says Andrews.