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The future of fish is looking a lot like … salami? And meatballs. And fried chicken. And breakfast sausage. And, of course, spare ribs and burgers. This is America, after all.
Welcome to the era of surreptitious seafood, where the industry is betting it can win over Americans by making fish look and taste less like, well, fish.
“Our Taiwanese magic is making tuna taste like fried chicken,” says Jack Chi, a spokesperson for Tuna Fresh, a Taiwan-based company that sells tuna as fried “nuggets” and breaded chicken-tender-like strips. “We wanted to be able to engage in the U.S. market, and we found that fried foods are the way.”
Chi’s company was one of hundreds showcasing their products at the recent Seafood Expo North America in Boston. And among the sea of smoked salmon, scallops and all manner of crustaceans, one trend stood out: The seafood being pitched to the American market is looking less and less like seafood.
“It’s been a big trend for the last couple of years,” says Justin Rogers, a sales manager with SK Food Brands in Los Angeles. Among his company’s recent offerings: shrimp burgers, both slider-size and Whopper-worthy. “It makes it more palatable to people who aren’t big seafood fans. Especially with things like these sliders, it gives them an entry point.”
Americans have a notoriously limited appetite for seafood, consuming just about 19 pounds a year—a number that has budged only a bit in a century—most of it as shrimp and salmon. The global average is 45 pounds, while some European countries clock in closer to 90 pounds. Iceland leads everyone with around 200 pounds per year.
Disguising seafood to appeal to Americans isn’t entirely new. After all, frozen fish sticks and McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish hardly scream catch of the day. But many of the newer products are an entirely different species. Or rather, are trying to be.
The Associated Press has the full story.
