Macgregors Seafood Notes

HOT TOPIC- SO WHY FISH?

Menu planners are definitely considering more seafood options these days- why? Price, value, availability.

Price: Seafood prices in general have been dropping for the last couple years. The advances in fish farming have certainly had an impact on the tonnage of species such as salmon and shrimp. So much so that shrimp has surpassed tuna(mostly canned tuna) as the top selling seafood item. Both shrimp and salmon are at what I call "new norms" when it comes to pricing. Of course there still will be ups and downs in pricing, but the new norm has been established and you should be able to use current pricing as a moderate level going forward.
The strength of the Canadian dollar has also helped pricing here in Canada. Today's 14 year high for the dollar against the U.S. currency helps make Canada a more attractive destination. As our dollar strengthens, our over-seas suppliers get more bang for their sale while we gain the benefit of our currency strength with lower import pricing. This also applies to our very own Canadian sourced fish as well, as our harvesters receive a lower return on their U.S. sales. Many new opportunities are being presented from our home grown fish that otherwise would have been sold in other markets.

Value: as we get presented with these new opportunities, gone are the days of "well the export products from Canada are sold over-seas, while we are left with the seconds." Now Canada is being offered the prime products at competitive prices and this enhances the quality opportunities. Seafood has long been associated with the food-service restaurant trade. Consumers like to order fish when they go out to dine. Now the value relationship for the restauranteur allows an acceptable return- no longer is seafood a loss leader, but rather it has become the most profitable item on the menu! That is a WOW!

Availability: certainly the influences of China have enhanced the entire seafood category. State of the art processing facilities with inexpensive labor allows many new value added seafood products available. And this is only going to get better. The end user friendly products are becoming abundant. So much so, that if there is a back of the house labor saving issue, there likely now is a solution. And this, more than anything is likely the biggest reason why seafood sales are growing in leaps and bounds. Stay tuned as over the coming weeks we will be highlighting some of these unique opportunities in our new seafood product introduction section which we will be featuring. Stay tuned!

Mr. Fish