Macgregors Seafood Notes

The frenzy is over. 4 days and close to 40,000 people passing by our booth. Not sure why macgregors would be at a show that is mainly attended by the public? Promoting our retail brand 44th St CAB Pot Roast and CAB Rasoee Curry Beef was obvious (we served it on Artisan Parmesan & Black Pepper Focaccia from Petit Four bakery). But at one point in the middle of an onslaught of hungry show goers on Friday I was sort of asking myself what macgregor's foodservice was doing there as well. But at the end of the day it was clear - we were getting people closer to their food. Most of the people out there have very little (surprisingly little) knowledge about what their food actually is and where it comes from. They read all kinds of names on menu's (sometimes several for the same thing), but truly never get a real idea about what it is, where it's from, how it's raised or caught, how it gets here and the people behind the process.
So our purpose was to add some value to the people attending the show - talk to our customer's customer's so to speak. What were we talking about...why are all Sea Scallops not created equal? What makes our Boutique In-shore Day-Boat Sea Scallops different than the market dominated "industrially" harvested scallops? What is Kona Kampachi anyways and why is it truly unique, not only from progressive ecologically sound aquaculture techniques, but also it's healthfully rich oil content making it in a culinary class by itself. Trust me, we did a lot of talking.
What made it really great was how good the food was that we were serving. We partnered up with Chef Gord Mackie from Far Niente to showcase our products, and the feedback was unanimous - we were serving some of the most memorable food at the show: Day-Boat Sea Scallop ceviche, with kaffir lime, fresh garlic, ginger & chili with coconut & avocado. Kona Kampachi ceviche with buckwheat soba noodles, soy lime vinaigrette, sisho mint & daikon. Pretty amazing. Just to add to that, we served it all on 100% compostable and Fair Trade certified dishes made from natural bark & re-constituted tree material.
We definitely felt by the end of the show that we had, at the very least, enlightened a few people and certainly entertained along the way. Hopefully there are a few more educated diners out there, asking chefs the right questions and ultimately creating a bigger demand for better products - our products. We'll never really know the ultimate impact we had, but we know we represented ourselves well in front of a large audience talking about great products and great restaurants (our customers).