Fresh catch
In early August, Sainsbury published a report on its progress and that of other retailers towards more sustainable consumer choices in fish and some of the barriers to higher uptake.
The focus of the report, Our future with fish, compiled by the Future Foundation, was on alternatives to the 'big five' fish varieties. But it also shed light on the broader context, including the fact that overall UK consumption of fish per head is just 2% higher today than in 1975.
For many retailers and fish processors, the emphasis is on encouraging higher global fish sales, rather than consumption of one variety.
Leading the charge towards a new approach to pre-packed chilled fish has been The Saucy Fish Co. The brand is owned by Seachill, part of the Icelandic Group.
"There's a huge swathe of the population that won't go near fish, despite the much broader awareness of the health benefits," says Saucy Fish brand leader Simon Smith.
Smith does not share Sainsbury's view that sustainability concerns constitute a significant barrier to higher sales. "We've carried out our own research, and consumer resistance has nothing to do with sustainability. The biggest barriers are around consumer confidence and a perceived lack of convenience," he argues.
European fish industry market development manager at Sealed Air Packaging Gonzalo Campos agrees. "Packaging can help remove the fear factor when it comes to protein, and suggest to the consumer just how easy it is to prepare."
He adds: "There's no shortage of people making products for consumers who already eat fish. But how are we going to target a new generation of consumers?"
Saucy Fish set out to overcome this resistance by packing portioned fish in easily merchandised skin packaging. Unlike the fish Seachill supplies to the own-label market, this is as the name suggests twinned with an appropriate sauce.
Since then, in parallel with consumer-facing campaigns such as Sainsbury's 'Switch the Fish', retailers have made a lower-profile move to 'switch the packaging'. Following the Saucy Fish lead, this has largely been about shifting own-label pre-packed fresh fish from sealed trays to skin packs.
Marks & Spencer (M&S) blazed a trail in 2010, with Tesco and then Sainsbury following this lead. According to packaging equipment supplier Multivac, Waitrose is now the only major UK retailer to remain with the tray-and-lidding format for the majority of its fish.
Campos at Sealed Air points to some of the triggers for this change. "You have no liquids moving within the pack, there is no need for an absorber, and you gain better bacteriological control," he explains.
Sealed Air is not unique in supplying this type of skin packing system. "But our Darfresh packaging has the greatest market share in UK fresh fish," he says. "Now, some 15,000t of fish are packed in it every year."
Among other options offered by Sealed Air is the vacuum-formed Simple Steps flexible format. While the focus in the UK is on fresh fish and seafood, packaged product in Spain and other European markets is often associated with extended shelf-life. "Shrimps, for instance, can be pasteurised in-pack and offer a 'highly fresh' perception," says Campos. "The consumer can microwave or steam them."
Saucy Fish uses Sealed Air Darfresh skin packaging and the Sira Cook cook-in bag from Sirane. The Darfresh format is aimed at confident consumers of fish looking for more convenience, says Smith: what the firm calls 'fish fanatics'.
Sealed tray vs skin packs
He queries Sealed Air's point about the hygiene benefits of the skin pack, saying there is no shelf-life gain compared with sealed trays.
"We don't have any scientific data on this, but we believe the fish remains marginally more succulent than in a tray, and dries out slightly less," says Smith. The cost is also fairly similar.
Andrew Stark, marketing manager at Multivac UK, points to reduced packaging as another major point in Darfresh's favour.
As The Saucy Fish Co's parent firm Seachill has shown, there is demand for own-label chilled fish in skin pack formats, too. Says Stark: "The major retailers prefer to sell sauces separately, rather than inside the same pack, so the consumer is free to match the fish with the sauce they prefer."
Saucy Fish's other main pack type, the Sirane foil-backed bag, on the other hand, targets two more of Saucy Fish's consumer segments: 'fish wannabes' and 'fish frighteners'. Here, there is no need to touch the fish at all until you eat it.
While Saucy Fish does not supply product in microwaveable packaging, others see this as an opportunity. A few months ago, M&S launched its Quick to Cook range of three fish and sauce combinations in Sirane's Smart-Release bag. A seal between compartments bursts when pressure and temperature reach a given point.
"The materials used are actually relatively inexpensive," says Sirane director Simon Balderson. "But the different polymer used along the release seal has a fairly reliable failure point."
When it comes to processing and packaging equipment for fish, full automation tends to be more an aspiration. As a supplier of a range of pre-made bags, Sirane has seen customers struggle to find existing and appropriate packing systems, and has set up an engineering division.
"Bagging, whether for Smart-Release or other Sira-Cook formats, creates issues on high-volume, high-speed lines," says Balderson. "We make bespoke machines for each customer, based around a line of hoppers. But the operations tend to be semi-automated and still relatively labour-intensive."
Fully-automated lines have been supplied to customers packing poultry, he says, but the addition of sauces makes automation more problematic. "To a great extent, though, this sort of thing depends on volumes, and we are getting customers talking about packing higher volumes of fish," he says.
One of the potential barriers to higher fresh fish sales not quantified by Sainsbury's research is the issue of bones. Effective filleting has been a time-consuming and labour-intensive process. But Icelandic technology firm Valka has come up with the RapidPinbone system.
Deboning technology
By using a combination of X-ray imaging and high-pressure water jet cutting to remove areas containing pinbones and portion the fillets, the system is said to reduce the number of operators required on a line typically by two-thirds. The Valka technology has been installed at Icelandic processor HB Grandi.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that X-ray has been used for this purpose," says Valka sales and marketing manager Agust Sigurdarson. While the capital cost is relatively high, especially since robotic systems are used, return on investment is about more than reducing labour costs.
"The accuracy of cutting, too, is far better than in a manual operation, so the loss in cut-off is much less," says Sigurdarson. "Grandi predicts that the value of bone-free products will be 40% or 50% higher, and on this calculation, the expected payback time is around 12 months."
Grandi is using the line to debone redfish, but saithe, haddock, cod and salmon have also been successfully trialled on the equipment. The alignment of the cutting robots can be altered to suit larger types of fillet with different bone structures, says Valka.
As a part of this trend to reduce operator requirements, Marel has introduced a semi-automated, high-speed grading and packing line tailored to the needs of farmed fish such as sea bass, sea bream, tilapia and trout. The system offers higher speeds, increased accuracy and improved yield, says Marel.
After being individually weighed, each fish travels through a grader, which can be configured with up to 24 gates. The fish is weight-sorted into batching bins and then, once the target weight is reached, released on to a packing shelf for manual arrangement in a bulk tray.
"We're putting together standardised solutions, and one of these is for farmed fish," says Ian Weatherstone, sales team manager at Marel Grading. "Previously, we would tend to build a line to a client's needs. This was time-consuming, and often 15% or 20% more expensive."
Like other Marel systems, the Farmed Fish Solution uses Innova software to track product and manage data. "For farmed fish, Innova monitors product and links it back to the pond it came from," says Weatherstone. "That way, where fish sizes or yields are better, customers can correlate this with the conditions or processes used in specific ponds."
Since its introduction earlier this year, three Farmed Fish lines have been installed, says Marel none so far in the UK.
Just like packaging's contribution to convenience, reassurance and appetite appeal, the processing stage can make a huge difference to final quality and consistency, and so help to boost overall retail sales.
