Cast your net wider

As government authorities take radical steps to ensure the future of cod and haddock, processors are being forced to rethink their sourcing and consider new species.

"Sustainability is pretty much at the core of what we do," says Guy Miller, new product development (NPD) controller at Young's Seafood. "There's quite a ground swell of suppliers recognising that there's scope to use the MSC [Marine Stewardship Council] logo globally. We deal with around 62 species and we need to be comfortable with them all."

Birds Eye marketing manager Ian Crichton feels that the MSC logo is becoming important to consumers as well as processors. "They expect us to take care of issues such as sustainability, so the MSC tick may well become a lot more recognised in the future," he says.

Penny Wood, head of innovation at Coldwater Seafood claims that consumers are just starting to understand what the MSC logo means, although it is still hard for them to fully comprehend. "You can't see fish in the sea, so the consumer can't picture how they are treated, whereas people can visualise an animal in a cage," she says.

With cod and haddock quotas being cut dramatically, there'll be a shortage of the species, plus they'll be more expensive, states Wood. The 2007 total allowable catch (TAC) for Northeast Arctic cod is set at 424,000t (10% below the previous year), while the TACs for Baltic Southwest and Central stocks have been cut by 6% to 26,696t and 17% to 40,805t respectively, compared with 2006. Meanwhile over-fishing of Icelandic haddock is higher than precautionary limits.

To counteract this, Coldwater will be using fish from alternative sources. "We're looking at pacific cod and Scottish haddock, which we believe will be in more supply than Icelandic," claims Wood.

At the other end of the spectrum, Miller is considering using different species altogether. "We started with pangasius last year," he says. "Right now we're looking at kingfish, sourced from the Far East. It's an oily fish, so it has omega-3 benefits."

Provenance takes priority

Young's has also explored the idea of incorporating seaweed into coatings, but the main focus is less on the weird and wonderful, and more on provenance, says Miller.

However, he believes that, in the future, consumers will have a more advanced understanding of provenance and will use it as a tool to choose their favourite ingredients. "I think eventually consumers will become blind to provenance [as a selling point]. At the moment it's on a limited number of products, but in five years' time everything will have a story, and that's when the area itself will become more important. For example, people will see that the reason why a certain bread crumb coating is better is because of the good quality of soil in the area where the wheat is grown, which makes a better flour."

As well as noting the product's origin, seafood processors are expected to source locally wherever possible, claims The Big Prawn Company md Bob Fleming. "If we bring anything to the table now, it needs to have a story and that can be challenging. Retailers want to know why you've gone outside the UK," he says.

He predicts that the trend may even lead to a regression within processing. "If people are really serious about the issue, we'll see a move back to smaller, less efficient factories," he says. "We currently have the ability to source fish from around the world, but will retailers sell it when it goes against local trends in the marketplace?" He fears there may be a backlash against exotic species because they involve a lot of air freight. "Do consumers want to eat something that's travelled 12,000 miles?" he asks.

In contrast, Brakes commercial manager Adam Swan is certain that new species will enter into the mainstream. "If you look at menus now, compared to five years ago, they're dramatically different, so I think this will continue to change. Hake and hoki are much more important today and pollock, which used to be viewed as a cheap alternative to cod, is more accepted."

Birds Eye launched pollock fishfingers last August and announced that from September 18% of its fish fingers would be sourced from MSC-certified fisheries, resulting in a 4,000t reduction in its yearly cod catch. "It's easy to announce that you've launched a sustainable fish product, and then keep the main [cod] line," says Crichton, who believes that companies need to be braver when introducing new species. Birds Eye predicts that pollock will make up 80% of its fish finger business by 2010.

Diving into the unknown

The company is also looking into the potential for hake dishes. "It's certainly a possibility, but we don't have any solid plans in place. We launched a hake product a couple of years ago and it didn't perform well, although it is very popular in Italy."

Coldwater is also looking at hake, though it's a drier eat than cod, says Wood, who is concerned that consumers could be distrusting of new species. "Consumers are more familiar with pollock because of the work Birds Eye has done, but they don't understand hoki and hake. If you can call it whitefish, then that's fine, but if you have to mention the species in the sub-description, people get very nervous."

She feels that lesser known species are more likely to be introduced as ingredients in a larger dish. "Consumers probably wouldn't try it in fillet format, but a fish pie is less frightening because you can say the ingredients are: salmon, scallops and whitefish, including hoki."

Hake is quite fibrous, like crab and more suited to fishcakes, she says. "It's quite grey, but when you put it with other ingredients, such as mash and tomato, then its not so noticeable."

The company has already had some success with hake though. "We've made a potato and hake Cook dish for M&S [Marks & Spencer] where we use Sicillian lemon oil - it lifts the whole dish," she says.

Coldwater gets development inspiration from a variety of sources. "We look at some of the branded boys like Youngs and wetfish counters and work with customers to discuss the latest trends," says Wood. But she still thinks that it will be hard to replace the most popular species. "The top five sellers are cod, haddock, tuna, scampi and salmon. I think they'll still be the same in five years time. It's moving very slowly."

Nevertheless, the firm is still developing with new species and has even had a go at a squid fishfinger. "We did in-house research with employee's families and everyone loved the idea of a fish finger with no bones, but once they found out what they were eating, they went off it." The dish was also rejected by retailers. "We showed it to one retail customer and it was the same issue - they liked it, but they didn't think it would sell," she says, "yet new product development is about stretching people's imaginations."

Big Prawn urges retailers and processors alike to become more adventurous. "There's an aversion to risk-taking in the industry," says Fleming. "Small firms have to work much harder to get on shelf." The company's products are on European supermarket shelves and have done well on a local basis, but aren't available through the big retailers nationally.

This hasn't put the company off NPD though. "We're working on a combination of shellfish and fruit and we're presenting our ideas to potential partners and clients," says Fleming. "We're looking at grapes and prawns in snack packs. The sweeter the fruit, the better - melon works very well." The firm hopes to have a product on shelf by early 2008 and already has a potential listing at a high street retailer.

Big Prawn is also conducting trials with vacuum tumbling, to save customers having to marinade seafood. The manufacturer is experimenting with multiple component pouches in order to liven up the convenience category. "One component has butter, which will burst after 30 seconds, and then potentially some veg or herbs could flood in at the end of the cooking." The company is working with its film suppliers and Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association to understand how different components react to each other. "Take sauces for example," says Fleming. "Because they are so acidic, they would ruin a product, which is why they have to remain separate."

Preservation potential

The processor is also looking at how it can preserve its food for longer, but finding research partners is proving a challenge. "We're looking for a partner to do research into microbial levels. There's nervousness because of the trend towards store cupboard ingredients," he says. "Research around micronutrients, cosmeceuticals and functional foods is more sexy, but like it or not, you have to preserve food because retailers want longer shelf-lives."

"There is a lot of pressure to preserve fish," agrees Wood. "We can use atmosphere modified packaging with carbon dioxide, but we don't like using additives. Retailers keep saying the shelf-life needs to be at least seven days, but if it isn't, there's not much you can do."

Having pushed packaging technology to its limits, Coldwater is analysing coatings in an attempt to maintain product quality for longer. If a product is sitting in its display tray for a long time, excess moisture in the substrait runs into the coating and makes it soggy, says Wood. "When you are at home you can dip fish into batter and then let it run off, but you can't do that on a grand scale. We're spending a lot of time on our enrobing kit to control the level of coating and see how thin we can make it."

The seafood sector is making real advances in terms of both products and packaging, and it certainly seems to be coping with demands for sustainable sourcing. Miller is so confident in the processing industry, he believes seafood may well become more popular than meat. "If fish is farmed the right way, it could become the main protein, as others have pressures related to land use," he says. "The price of poultry is moving up. Once it is on an even level with fish, I think people will realise that the latter is better for them." FM