Macgregors Seafood Notes

July 1, 2009
THE SEASON IS IN FULL SWING!

OPEN AREA DAYS:
About 50% of the open area days are left. Substantial quantities are being landed. For the rest of the season, we anticipate continued strength. Expected sizes harvested are as follows: 10 to 15% will be U10’s, 10 to 15% will be 10/20’s and the remainder will be 20/30’s.

PROTECTED AREAS:
Elephant Trunk Area
70% of the catch is in. The Elephant Trunk is closing from Sept. 1st to October 31st due to the Atlantic Turtle migration. There have been less U10’s than originally thought leading to a remaining estimated harvest of 10% U10’s and 90% 10/20’s.

Delmarva
70% of the catch is also in, here. The remaining harvest estimates here will also be heavier on 10/20’s (90%) and lighter on U10’s (10%) of the total.

Georges Bank: Access Area II
George’s Bank was closed on June 28 for the remainder of the season due to the excessive Yellow Tail Flounder by-catch. The U10’s were 60% of the harvest (significantly lighter than originally projected) while 10/20’s accounted for 40%.


Both demand and supply have been very healthy. Pricing has been stable.

Based on the outlook for the remaining harvest we are more convinced than ever that U10’s will be in short supply this year. Scallop suppliers have been trying to build up inventories for the winter but, due to the high demand, this has been difficult to do. Higher pricing will be the result of this situation.

The value size, from a price and supply standpoint, will be 10/20’s.

30/40’s will continue to be in tight supply and priced accordingly.

Hello, my name is Paul and I'm now a Twitter-er! Okay, I've owned up. Unfamiliar? A quick easy way to "follow" along with what a Fish guy like me is doing, thinking about and generally musing about....in 140 characters or less (which suits about how in depth my thoughts are). So what am I talking about? The fish I'm sourcing, when it's coming, posting pic's of what it looks like, insightful (debatable) fish facts, events we're participating in, all coupled with wit, charm & humor (also debatable). You can come along when I travel to various ends of the earth and get to know our supplier partners. Get a glimpse how and where your fish comes from! It's all very exciting (again, debatable).
I'm feeding live updates to our homepage even.

This week I'm talking up the new season Pole & Line Caught Carolina Mahi Mahi, the day-boat Hook & Line Caught Haddock, Wild Ivory King Salmon from Alaska, Wild Striper's and Black Sea bass, the Seafood for Thought event this Thursday at the Toronto Zoo with our Ocean Wise partner and restaurant partners Pangaea, C5 & Trios Bistro (Marriott).

http://twitter.com/pFvK

Check out some of the people I'm following as well...

Paul

A good time of year to be in the fish business. For one, who wants a pot roast after spending the day in the sun, and secondly, FISH is in season. Here's what's happening now and in the coming weeks (what pescivores dreams are made of):

Wild Salmon (Copper River Alaska kicked it off a few weeks back, rest of Alask and BC about to open up: Redspring Kings, Sockeye's)
Maryland Soft-Shell Crabs (here now and almost gone)
Wild Trap Caught Black Bass (Mass season now)
Wild Hand-Line Caught Striped Bass (Mass season June)
Live BC Spot Prawns (now)
Wild Nunavut Arctic Char (soon!)
Carolina Wreakfish (now)
Nova Scotia Live Lobsters (no better time)

Put that steak down!

There is no shortage of seafood appetizer options in the marketplace. At a glance, this plethora promises to add an element of diversity and even exotic flair to a menu. The sheer multitude of products means that there is something for just about any restaurant operation; casual right on up through fine dining. The venerable Shrimp Cocktail and Bacon Wrapped Scallops have found their place on countless menus across Canada and the US, insomuch as they are now commonplace.
The success and penetration of seafood in the appetizer section of menus, however, isn’t all rosy. What once had the lure of diversity and uniqueness has become a very homogenized segment. The incentive for these menu items to add increased profits to the operator’s bottom line has led or pushed producers to find more and more inexpensive ways to manufacture these products. The bottom line is that the quality of the raw material has decreased and much has become over processed, and unvaryingly similar in taste. In fact, there is much room for improvement and arguably, the operator that chooses to go back to basics in sourcing natural, fresh (where possible) seafood for their appetizer section will find a renaissance of sales and profitability from diners seeking quality and value from their restaurant experience.
As an operator, the best place to start is the ingredient declaration of your current products. Take, for example, the Shrimp Cocktail. The shrimp cocktail is great example because in its essence, the shrimp are being served as “natural” as they can be, and the point of the dish is to highlight the shrimp (hopefully not just the cocktail sauce). It’s surprising then that nearly all the shrimp coming into North America, and indeed the shrimp found in shrimp cocktails everywhere, is a multi-ingredient item. Most labels would look something like this: Shrimp, sodium tri-polyphosphate, salt, water – or some variation of this. These ingredients are processing agents and they act to increase weight & water retention prior to freezing, and invariably, they affect the taste. A natural shrimp would have in the neighborhood of 80mg of sodium per serving and a typical shrimp you’d find either in grocery or in restaurants would be upwards of 500mg – before anything is even done to it. The flavor that the diner has now become accustomed to is salt, not shrimp. Side by each, natural shrimp has a vastly less “salty” taste; it is also denser with a significantly “crunchier” texture and much more pronounced and vibrant color. The operator who markets a natural shrimp in their cocktail or any other dish now has a story to tell the diner - a point of differentiation and “value”, and in most cases, it’s merely the cost of moving down a size. It would also award a better dining experience, meaning return customers and more appetizer sales.
Continue analyzing ingredient declarations and you’ll find a similar story across the board, notably scallops. Most of these customary seafood items are in need revitalization. They are available in a natural, untreated form and in many cases fresh. They offer significantly different eating experiences vs. their traditionally processed frozen forms. When buying fresh and unprocessed products, the lines of traceability and sustainability are predictably much clearer and the priority is typically quality over price. The cost associated with making a switch to this is not as significant as to limit it only to white tablecloth restaurants either.
At the end of the day, any products a chef / operator can menu that have a “story” or a point of differentiation will only add value to the dining experience. In today’s foodservice climate, customers are looking for value, which doesn’t mean the most food for the least. It is quality, taste, and food they can feel good about. Today that means going back to basic, natural & fresh ingredients. Ingredients people will come back for…

Winter-Licious is here. Over 150 restaurants participate in this marketing event in effort to get people out and into restaurants in a typically slow season. The attraction is all these restaurants offer a 3 course prie-fix menu for relatively cheap ($25-$45).

However, each year that it comes & goes, restaurants & diners seem to be getting more and more resentful of the event. Restaurants comment that it's just a mass feeding, with very high turns and very low liquor sales. Servers get over-worked and complain of making less than typical gratuities. Some restaurants source very inexpensive items in an effort to maximize profits for the event. In the end, the diner may not always get a fair impression of what a "normal" experience at a certain restaurant may be like. This to me is a mistake.

If you've got people coming into your restaurant, for any occasion, they are your customer. Even an event like this, where they may only be looking to spend the minimum amount possible, it is still your chance to wow them. This year, more than any other year, people's personal dining budget is under tremendous pressure. The frequency of dining out, by all accounts, will be less this year. So how do you capture those precious customers? It isn't by turning them out as quickly as possible for a much profit as you can squeeze (typically made up in the product you sell).

We deal with a lot of restaurants who participate in Winter-Licious, and while some do look for the inexpensive products for their menu, there are some still who look at it as an opportunity to invest in a potential return customer. They feature good products, not unlike their "regular" menu's. They don't try to over-book themselves to the point that service suffers. As their supplier we try to find high quality items that we can potentially offer some value on, because we're here to help grow their business too. It may not be the most profitable 2 week event, but it isn't supposed to be. It's supposed to be advertising. Investing in your brand for future sales.

Hopefully the organizers and participants continue to grow this event and place an emphasis on quality of food and service, because there is plenty potential yet, and precious "dining-out" dollars need to be taken graciously, humbly and respectfully...

For all the ways we've changed over the years there has always been one constant: Jail Island Salmon. Yes, it is a different story now than it was 20 years ago when they were one of the first farms to get a license in the Bay of Fundy. In fact, Jail Island is now a brand under the Cooke Aquaculture umbrella. But change can be good and what the Jail Island label is now would have been impossible to achieve from in it's original incarnation. Let's start with what hasn't changed. They are still raising Genuine Atlantic Salmon. What is this? Simply put, a native New Brunswick strain of Atlantic Salmon, raised in...the Atlantic. Not in British Columbia, not in Chile, as well over 80% of Atlantic Salmon in this market comes from. It is indigenous to the East Coast & Bay of Fundy. It is still the premium food service brand packed exclusively for Macgregors in Ontario. Fillets destined for retail do not meet the quality standards of premium foodservice grade, selected for chefs.

What is Jail Island now? A world leader is progressive, sustainably focused aquaculture. Because they fall under the larger Cooke Aquaculture umbrella they have the luxury of employing a unique 3-bay management strategy of crop rotation allowing for organic renewal of the ocean sites as well as naturally controlling disease and thus eliminating the need for sub-therapeutic antibiotics. They use low stocking densities, a natural 2 year growth cycle (no growth hormones), only 20% of their feed is made up of fish protein (50% less than a decade ago), and their completely integrated business model reduces their overall carbon footprint by sourcing all their resources locally and servicing only local / regional markets. They have begun work in Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture where bi-valves such as mussels grow along side the salmon in order to filter waste, as well as growing Kelp beneath the pens to further filter waste as well contribute as an ingredient in future feed manufacture. All of this and now they are Seafood Trust Certified.

The certification mark SEAFOOD TRUST attests that Jail Island salmon meets Certified Quality Salmon Standards (CQS). These standards have been developed with representatives throughout the supply chain and interested parties including producers, consumer representatives, retailers, government, and researchers, all covering the full supply chain. It stands for excellence in seafood production and attests that seafood under this label has been produced to very high standards which surpass usual government regulatory requirements and inspections.

What is a Certified Quality Salmon?

A Certified Quality Salmon from Jail Island is a product which is traceable to stringent product quality specifications pertaining to freshness, visual appearance, taste and texture. The certification also attests that Jail Island Salmon operates to best industry practice with regards to food safety, employee and animal welfare and social responsibility.

From then to now, Jail Island has remained a dynamic, responsible & progressive brand that we are proud to carry. Congratulations on becoming Seafood Trust certified.

The Seafood Short Weight Issue

When is the last time you took a frozen box of seafood, slacked it out, and weighed what the product actually weighed? If you are buying frozen Squid, Basa or Tilapia, chances are it weighed less than the declared weight on the box.

At a recent meeting held in Toronto, hosted by the industry group, Fishery Council of Canada, it was widely agreed that short weight in the Canadian seafood industry is a problem. So much so, that a task force industry group has been organized to bring this issue to the forefront.

The first step was to agree that there is an issue. The next step is to set up a meeting with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to discuss this issue.

In the meantime, what can you do? Certainly, you can indeed weigh your frozen product in slacked out form to see if you are getting declared weights. My suggestion is to look on the ingredient listing to see if there is anything else declared other than the fish itself. "Glazed water", phosphates?" These are beware of ingredient listings.

If you do come up with a short weight example, please forward to me, and I will ensure your information is sent to the FCC task force group.
Mr. Fish

Impressions of Vietnam/Thailand
Been almost a decade since I have been to Thailand. Much has changed, would be a simplification. Of course much has changed. I was struck by the over-all cleanliness of the Bangkok waterway system. Young children swimming, Orchid gardens, Buddhist temples, open markets, and the magnificent mangrove areas. Most improved in the city centre was clearly the air quality. By North American big city standards, it seemed above par to me. Especially, when you consider the two temperatures I experienced; 38 degrees Celsius and 39 degrees...yikes was it hot!

The over-head tram system no doubt having a terrific positive impact. Gone are the face masks, the dust, most of the traffic congestion, although the locals still complain, not much different to the Toronto chaos!

In the Seafood world, more the same than different. Certainly, today 95% of the shrimp farms in Thailand are Intensively farmed white shrimp. Last time I was there, the black tiger ruled. Today, the faster growing white shrimp has taken over Thailand shrimp farms.

Vietnam, very much a rural country. Commerce centers around the busy streets, with store fronting on all major and most minor thoroughfares. Motorcycles and bicycles still rule the roads making travel pretty slow by road. I spent my time in the Camau region of Vietnam where our Extensively produced "Just shrimp" program comes from. Vietnam too is switching to white shrimp farming, but the Camau region is uniquely located in a region where "Extensive" or a natural shrimp can be grown largely based upon natural growing and feeding cycles within the Mangrove regions.

"Just Shrimp" is macgregors first efforts in importing a shrimp that does not go through a phosphate treatment, nor a salt bath. The shrimp have a much more natural "crunch", and the flavour profile is without the traditional "chemical" taste. Time will tell if the Canadian food-service market is ready for this. We think it is.
Mr. Fish