Seafood sustainability: a key focus now and into the future

“Provenance and sustainability is very important to today’s consumers,” says David White, Executive Chef at Simplot Australia which has built a solid reputation as a seafood specialist through its I&J and Captains Catch brands that together supply an extensive range of products into the foodservice market. “They’re quite likely to walk in and ask ‘where does your seafood come from?’ And if you can’t provide the answer, they’ll happily call you out on social media – we’ve all seen instances where a restaurant will get a bad rap because they weren’t able to give that information.”

Simplot has also made a conscious decision to move away from generic labelling like ‘white fish’ and instead delineate species – hoki, hake, whiting etc. “This gives the chef and the wait staff the opportunity to call the species out on the menu as a further point of differentiation,” David explains. “Customers want to be informed about what they’re buying and ‘Southern blue whiting sourced from New Zealand’ sounds much more appealing than simply ‘fish in batter’. It’s all about creating a story around the food, and that’s a trend which the smart restaurateurs and chefs have picked up on. It gives consumers confidence that they’re eating real food and it’s more appetising.”

The other major shift David cites this year is the need for product which holds up well for home delivery. “This was happening even before the lockdowns came into play, and we’ve already put a lot of investment into creating batters and coatings designed to maintain product quality and presentation for longer. That said, I think we’re now at the point with technology where we’re able to look ahead to the next generation of these. Delivery is not going to go away – even post-Covid it will continue to grow, and if your business can deliver product better that the competition, that’s going to be a critical point of difference for you. That means looking at a combination of great quality product and good sensible packaging designed for delivery - packaging that will allow your food to breathe and not go soggy or otherwise deteriorate.”

Value added seafood on the rise

National seafood supplier Pacific West has noted a shift in demand toward more natural, uncoated fish fillet – “particularly in Victoria where there’s a bigger takeaway market,” notes Pacific West Innovation Manager Neil Cane. “When the state first went into lockdown a lot of businesses moved into takeaway, even pubs and clubs, so we created a new online resource called justcooked.com.au which provides suggestions about how to adapt to the new market expectations. Businesses like cafes found themselves with 10 staff and empty seats and needed to know how to suddenly start doing takeaway and delivery meals.”

Neil says feedback regarding the online resource has been very positive: “We heard from some end-users saying they’d never done takeaway and delivery before, but our value-added products have made it easy for them. As far as new product development goes, we’ve got new products in the pipeline but right now the market is sticking to what they know and are confident will deliver quality and consistency, so we’re holding off on any launches for the time being.”

Going ‘hyperlocal’

With lockdowns and border closures generating supply chain concerns, there has also been a renewed focus on local and even ‘hyperlocal’ produce – with some businesses seeking out down-the-street suppliers or produce sourced within the same suburb. At The Ary Toukley on the NSW Central Coast, locally sourced seafood has always been a prominent component of the menu, and as Executive Chef Alex Patterson tell us, the past few months have only exacerbated this trend. “I think customers want to see you using local ingredients whenever you can – as Aussies it’s built into our nature to get each other’s backs, and so much has happened this year people want to know you’re supporting the guy down the road or across the street, and this also applies to seafood.

“We alternate our seafood every few days depending on local market availability – at the moment we’ve got snapper, fresh barramundi, dewfish, swordfish and a couple of others. Changing it around gives the chefs the creativity to come up with new dishes because we don’t have a menu locked in. Lately we’ve been experimenting with native ingredients, like fish with lemon myrtle – our head chef Jake Silk is really big on them and it’s really starting to pay off. The local prawn season kicked off about a month ago and once they get a bit of size into them, we’ll introduce some Tuggerah Lakes prawns on the menu. The local fishermen are having the best start to a season they’ve had in years, which is a good sign for the area, and in a community-based organisation like an RSL everyone is keen to see you supporting local produce.”

Growing demand for premiumisation

Especially at this time of year, seafood is a big seller on pub market menus – as Gary Johnson, National Executive Chef for ALH Group which operates more than 340 hotels nationally, confirms. “Across all our hotels you’ll find three or four seafood dishes in the top ten sellers – salmon, barramundi, kobia.”

With fish and chips a staple of the pub menu, Gary says the secret is to keep it simple: “We choose fresh, seasonal, best of market ingredients and let the chefs have a bit of a play and showcase their creativity. When people ask me what’s the best way to serve fish my answer is always the same – olive oil, some white salt flakes, salad, well cooked chips and a slice of lemon on the side – that’s all you need and if you can crisp up the skin it’s delicious. It’s just simple excellence and people are becoming more aware just how healthy seafood is – with the rise of the flexitarian we’ve seen a slight decline in red meat, but demand for seafood has stayed very strong among all the competition, and despite the growth in plant-based foods.”

Provenance driving the shift to local produce

Markus Werner, Corporate Executive Chef at Delaware North Australia, is a big advocate for seafood sustainability and says “the focus for the future will be to track wherever your seafood is coming from. It doesn’t have to be Patagonian Toothfish which has travelled miles and miles – you can use good local flathead, local whiting. We have great farmed fish like barramundi and salmon and in the future people are going to want to know which farm it’s come from. Just yesterday I was in a sustainable seafood seminar and there were a lot of chefs online, so you can see more and more people are looking to make this a priority. I really think that is going to be the way of the future, and I would hope forever – we need to make sure we’re really looking after this resource. If anything good has come out of Covid, it’s been the recovery of our oceans – they are cleaner than ever, so we need to keep them like this and try not to go back to our old habits. It’s so easy to find great sustainable seafood – everything is out there, you just have to look for it.”