America`s new-found hunger for fish is spurring worldwide efforts to find and market new species.
– In New York City, the fish buyer for the popular Oyster Bar restaurant in Grand Central Station is pleased with customers` response to white sturgeon that is being cultivated in California`s Bodega Bay.
– Also from California comes farm-raised striped bass. This meaty fish, once a staple on East Coast restaurant menus, has all but disappeared from the Chesapeake Bay and been banned in New York because of high PCB counts.
– The Oyster Bar`s fish buyer, Steve Cohen, also is enthusiastic about pollution-free oysters from Washington State and British Columbia with names such as Skokonish, Golden Mantle, Vancouver and Kamamoto.
But, despite an increase in fish consumption of more than 20 percent over the last five years, little new seafood is found on restaurant menus or in supermarket cases in Chicago.
An exception may be when the Chicago Fish House introduces four new species of fin fish from New Zealand to local restaurant menus this fall. They are red sweet-lip, a delicious, snapper-like fillet; maori, a versatile fish reminiscent of grouper; red emperor, which is flaky and tender when cooked;
and hussar, a small, sweet fish that can be cooked whole.
The last consumer hit, orange roughy, also comes from New Zealand waters. It quickly became a favorite after a highly promoted introduction at very low prices three years ago. The cost has gone up since, but orange roughy has become a menu fixture.
Despite the high cost of flying the fresh fish from the South Pacific, the Fish House is betting one or more of the new imports will become popular as well.
(Restaurant sales are the key to successful seafood marketing. About two- thirds of the fresh fish eaten in America is consumed in restaurants. These range from New York City`s Le Bernardin, which serves only seafood on a $75 fixed price menu, to the Red Lobster dinner house chain, which now offers such exotics as monkfish and shark along with more familiar fare. According to Clare Vanderbeek, a spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute,
”Consumers still are very hesitant to cook fish products new to them. They will try them in a restaurant first.”)
In Seattle, seafood marketing expert Dean Pugh of Anthony`s Seafood predicted that nationwide marketing of non-spawning ”triploid” oysters would begin within a year. This would provide increased continuity to that previously seasonal industry and help offset dramatically reduced production from East Coast beds.
According to Pugh, the ”biggest news” in Pacific Northwest fishing circles is the joint ventures involving foreign companies in ”factory”
trawlers that seek out so-called ground fish to augment the pollock harvest. Enormous amounts of pollock, an undistinguished species, have been used for fast food chain fish sandwiches. Pollock also has been the core ingredient in the extruded fish paste product called surimi. The huge trawlers have facilities for processing and freezing the fish on board. They do not catch fish for the fresh market.
Surimi is used extensively as a substitute for crabmeat in restaurants and delis. Annual sales have climbed to more than 100,000 pounds and some marketers are projecting as much as a ten-fold increase in the next few years. Pugh also believes king crab, the shortage of which opened the door for surimi, is making a comeback. He predicts wholesale prices for crab will decline this fall.
Meanwhile, in answer to heavy demand, coho and king salmon farms are proliferating in Canada and the United States.
Aquaculture, as fish farming is called, now accounts for more than 10 percent of this country`s edible fish and shellfish production, with trout, oysters, crayfish and catfish being farmed the most.
Aquaculture`s future seems assured. The undermanned, antiquated U.S. fishing fleet can hook and net only 35 percent of the fish Americans buy each year. Pollution problems cast doubt on future commercial fishing in the Northeast and here in the Great Lakes. Supply cannot keep up with demand. But heavy start-up costs and economies of large-scale operation give large producers and corporations the edge in aquaculture investment. Sensing the trend to seafood, food industry giants, including General Mills, Ralston Purina and Campbell Soup, have gotten into the act.
A myriad of state and local laws complicate aquaculture, however, and fishermen have been vocal opponents of proposed facilities. After encountering resistance to projects proposed along American coasts, Ralston Purina and General Mills set up marine shrimp operations in Panama and Honduras.
Both ends of the supply and demand equation have been stretched this year. The price pressure caused by heavy consumer demand for many species has been intensified by a shortage of products. These shortages are being blamed on the mild weather North America enjoyed last winter. Industry sources say this led to a warming of the oceans, which, in turn, sent cold water-loving fish deeper and farther off shore.
With the dollar lower in value on world money markets, foreign fish merchants-notably the Japanese-are bidding for and winning an increased share of the American catch.
As a result, prices for luxury items such as fresh swordfish and tuna are currently more than $20 a portion in some of Chicago`s expense account restaurants and as high as $13 at retail fish counters.
Demand has not slackened, in large part because seafood continues to benefit from favorable publicity linking fish consumption and health. Nutritionists are telling Americans that eating more fish will lessen the risk of heart disease. A booklet published recently by the North Atlantic Seafood Association contains section titles such as ”Fish Are Low in Fat and Cholesterol,” ”Fish Are a Leaner Protein Source Than Most Plant Foods and Many Animal Foods,” ”Fish Is Easier to Digest Than Meat” and ”Fish Fits Today`s High Energy Lifestyles.”
Nonetheless, critics within the industry point out that the 2 percent increase in per capita consumption last year was below projections. In an editorial, the Seattle-based trade publication Seafood Leader blames prices and the quality of fish. ”There`s still a lot of lousy fish around,” the editorial stated. Peter Redmayne, the magazine`s editor, told the Los Angeles Times, ”Supermarkets have to learn to market fish better. If they are going to charge these high prices, then they should be high prices for good quality fish . . . or people will switch back to meat.”
The possibility that price resistance will set in concerns merchants and chefs alike.
”When shortages occur and demand is strong,” says Chicago Fish House`s Nancy Abrams, ”prices go up. Even so, none of our fish categories have lost ground. But some haven`t grown.”
”There`s been a tremendous shortage of fish, even staple items,”
reports Neil Rabin, manager and fresh fish buyer at Isaacson & Stern, a major wholesaler here. ”The mild weather has sent fish looking for colder water. But demand is way up and, with the dollar so low in value, so is competition from other countries. Nothing new has been introduced to us that will have the impact orange roughy has had.”
Orange roughy first was marketed in this country in Chicago and other Midwest cities. According to Rabin, the name was coined to give sex appeal to an ugly fish available in great quantity in waters off New Zealand. A major promotion, plus low prices for fillets that cooks can substitute in recipes for sole, paid off. ”It took off dramatically,” Rabin said, ”and even though the price is higher now, demand is still going up.”
Fresh fish in great demand locally include swordfish, salmon, tuna, red snapper, redfish (of blackened redfish fame) and Hawaiian fish such as mahi-mahi, ona (wahoo) and opah (moonfish). Some Great Lakes fish, notably walleye pike, were in very short supply during the summer. Among shellfish, shrimp
(our greatest supply now comes from Ecuador) is still the most popular. Squid, popular for some time in Chicago restaurants, is becoming a high demand item across the nation.
Among not-so-famous fish being promoted in efforts to spread demand are:
ocean pout (white-fleshed fillets from the North Atlantic), black-tip shark (a logical swordfish substitute in retail stores at less money; quality has become more consistent), golden king clip (a mild-flavored fish from South America) and channel rockfish and black rockfish from Alaskan and Canadian waters.
None of these species is new, though some of the names have been prettied up to enhance sales potential. (Try to order dogfish or wolffish, for instance.) Until recently, many of them were dismissed as ”trash” species. They were not fished or were discarded when they came up in nets because they presented no opportunity for profit. Today, they are part of a much broader selection available to the public. But the new generation of piscophiles apparently are reluctant sophisticates.
In general, says the Fisheries Institute`s Vanderbeek, ”the option of paying a lower price, not curiosity” is the main motivation when consumers first buy an unfamiliar fish.
