Seafood gets casual

Foodservice directors and chefs know that seafood is a delicious, healthy alternative to other proteins, and they’d like to sell more of it. But how do you get customers to buy in? And how do you take an ingredient category with a reputation for premium pricing and tricky handling and turn it into a popular, accessible menu option that fits within an affordable cost structure?

Answer: Take a more casual approach.

Seafood is often menued in plated entrees with a side or two. Many customers find that intimidating, and many operators think it’s not worth the investment in a product that guests might not order, or that they’ll need all kinds of extra inventory to create. But by featuring fish in fun, casual handhelds, such as tacos and burgers, or by simply swapping it in for another protein in existing menu specialties, seafood sales will build.

Featuring seafood in these types of formats is also something that consumers are looking for. According to Technomic, 36 percent of consumers say they eat seafood for lunch once per week or more; 59 percent of consumers do the same at dinner. Many consumers also associate seafood with health, making casual items such as fish tacos—which is up 67 percent on menus, according to Technomic—a great revenue-building opportunity.

“The fish taco trend has really exploded,” confirms Edward O’Donnell, director of marketing for Philadelphia-based Samuels and Son Seafood, which specializes in providing fish and shellfish to high-end, white-tablecloth restaurants, in addition to retail seafood shops and other high-volume accounts. “Moving out of street-food stalls and Cuban and Mexican restaurants, tacos are showing up on more and more mainstream menus.

“Tacos are very cost-effective for the operator,” continues O’Donnell. “They can be made with frozen seafood, which makes them affordable and available year-round. You can store the fish in the frozen state until it’s needed.”

Chefs have definitely become more creative with fish and shellfish, says O’Donnell. But educating foodservice patrons as well as servers and salespeople about the benefits of seafood, such as health and environmental concerns, is still very important. As part of this, sustainability has become a larger issue, which is the reason Samuels and Son and other organizations have moved to support products from Alaska.

“We’re seeing increased appreciation of the Alaska brand,” he explains. “When given information with a compelling sourcing and sustainability story behind it, chefs menu more Alaska seafood, and, in turn, convey that to servers.” In the end, this raises awareness among patrons about [that quality and sustainability story].

Beyond tacos, fish and shellfish can be incorporated into casual, more affordable options of all kinds, including:

Food costs are held in check because portion sizes are smaller than those required for a traditional center-of-plate entrée. In addition, trim and odd-size pieces, such as broken shrimp, can be upcycled into premium menu specialties, and overproduction can be deployed in new items such as salmon salad.

In addition, many existing menu specialties based on red meat or poultry can be recreated using fish or seafood. Though protein portion sizes will be the same, this strategy creates a completely different menu item utilizing the same inventory and prep but for the fish—an extremely efficient way to offer more variety with minimal impact on the kitchen but maximum appeal for customers.

To that end, the Alaska Seafood Marking Institute (ASMI) has created the SWAP Meat for Alaska Seafood program to encourage chefs to replace beef, pork, lamb or poultry specialties with seafood. The initiative is also being implemented by Alaska seafood supporters such as Samuels and Son, which will be launching a SWAP Meat for Alaska Seafood recipe contest in early 2016.

“Chefs are creative and competitive by nature, and they love the publicity provided by contests,” says O’Donnell. “We think our chef-customers will have a lot of fun with this.”

Click here for more information on SWAP Meat.