Maine firms angle for visibility at seafood show

BOSTON – If Mainers get to see any of the new seafood products introduced at the recent International Boston Seafood Show, it will be in the freezer aisles of the major grocery chains.

Major seafood producers such Fishery Products International, Geisha and others rolled out new wrinkles on the old theme of restaurant-style seafood, mostly batter-dipped, oven-ready items such as FPI’s Hometown-Diner Fish Fillets or Geisha’s fully cooked, frozen and ready-to-use shrimp, clam, mussel and calamari mixes.

The more interesting new retail products such as New Brunswick-based Pec Nord’s fresh, whole scallops in marinara sauce and Aqua Cuisine’s Seafood Tonight salmon dinners will have to wrestle national brands for space in Maine supermarkets. Other new seafood products such as Lobster Splitz – split, stuffed Maine lobster – or Echo Farms dry-cured, cold-smoked salmon will have to muscle aside Maine producers of similar products or overcome the familiarity problem.

One producer said “Mainers buy lobster maybe three times at the beginning of the season, then seem to lose interest.”

The abundance of good, fresh lobster spoils Mainers for a frozen whole-tails market. Aqua Cuisine, based in Boise, Idaho, asserted that “convenience sells everywhere, and people want restaurant-quality seafood at home.” Aqua Cuisine’s grilled, fully cooked, dill-sauced Atlantic salmon are conveniently vacuum-sealed in individual pouches for home cooks.

Still other new products such as seafood-stuffed pastas, NorthTaste’s seafood flavorings from the Icelandic company NorthIce, and Top Ocean’s Antarctic King Krill are destined for the food service market. If Mainers eat them, it will be in restaurants.

The seafood flavor from NorthIce and the krill items are among the most intriguing on the 2002 new products list. A patented process developed by NorthIce “isolates the flavor of the seafood in its purest form using enzymes derived from the seafood.” So far, the company offers shrimp, pollock and lobster flavor in a form which it had to point out repeatedly “is not a base.” Intensely flavored, all-natural and available frozen, NorthTaste products are used to raise flavor profiles of soups and sauces, most appropriate for use by chefs or the food industry.

Krill, a favorite food of whales, is fished in the Antarctic, and a new ship-board process enables the producers to shell the 2-inch crustaceans and turn it into a versatile product ideal for mixing with other fish to create seafood fillings and soups. One new products judge likened its texture to couscous. Its market is the food service industry.

The big seafood companies, who often carry lines of ready-to-cook chicken or beef meals in addition to their shrimp and fish dinners, easily afford the slotting fees required by the supermarket chains to make space in the stores for their new seafood products.

For smaller or newer producers, finding a large mass market in Maine or anywhere will be more of a challenge. When asked if their new product will be available in Maine markets, the more optimistic niche seafood producers asserted that they were very hopeful of breaking into the Maine market. Others shrugged and looked dubious, hoping to appeal instead to specialty food stores or restaurants.

Fierce competition for an apparently limited market characterized the seafood show. In addition to booths featuring everything from splitting and skinning machines to sanitizing equipment to packaging material, the seafood show offered buyers opportunities to obtain wholesale a whole range of seafood from wild-caught croaker to cusk, from smelt to swordfish. The great abundance of salmon, tilapia and catfish products on display pointed to the larger role aquaculture is playing in the fisheries.

Mainers are familiar with wild and farmed salmon, but tilapia and catfish are still struggling to find a place in Maine markets. Catfish with its association with the South and Midwest is gradually making inroads, according to producers, usually in a ready-to-cook form and most often sold to restaurants. Tilapia, a very mild, white-fleshed fish farm-raised in freshwater, is a favorite among the value-added people who batter-coat or bread it with flavorfully seasoned mixtures and sell it as unspecified “fillets.” One representative said that tilapia is a good fish for people who don’t like fish. Hannaford Brothers carries tilapia in Maine, but according to one sales representative, “not everywhere” in the state.

Maine seafood producers were in evidence, most hoping to reach markets outside the region. Mussel growers J.P. Shellfish and Great Eastern displayed their products, going head to head with mussel farmers from New Zealand and the Falkland Islands. Vinalhaven-based Claw Island Foods’ pre-cooked whole Maine lobsters and lobster tails appealed to buyers from the South and Southwest. Fijord-Ducktrap smoked fish products presented salmon and shellfish items, vying with Alaskan and Northwestern companies.

Maine-based seafood producers were probably under-represented. The high cost of booth space at the IBSS has forced many smaller companies off the floor, according to a former employee of Diversified Business Communications, which annually organizes the IBSS.

Sandra Oliver is a food historian from Islesboro.