Take a Fresh Look at Frozen

This summer I took advantage of our neighborhood farmer's market to buy pristine fresh halibut and troll-caught king salmon from a fishermen by the name of Gene. Every Saturday he drove into Seattle from the fishing town of La Push, on Washington's Olympic Peninsula Coast, to peddle his catch.

Now Gene's no dummy, which is why he was leapfrogging the distribution chain and selling direct to consumers. He also knew what Whole Foods was getting for the same fish, so he priced his accordingly. At $18.95 a pound for the king fillets and $14.95 for the halibut, it wasn't cheap. But it sure was good and for the line of eager shoppers waiting at his stall it was certainly worth it.

Unfortunately, fewer and fewer Americans have access to this kind of fish. As demand for fresh fish grows, prices have risen accordingly, as there's only so much fresh fish to go around. And higher fresh fish prices mean slower sales at supermarkets.

Fortunately, Americans are learning that high-quality frozen seafood can be every bit as good as fresh.

That's why more stores are throwing in the towel and replacing their full-service fresh seafood counters with a few feet of self-service seafood. With fewer sales, the labor intensive full-service counters are simply too expensive for some stores to operate. That's not good news for Americans who over the past few decades have come to enjoy the taste - and health benefits - of a variety of seafoods.

Increasingly, the alternative to high-priced fresh fish is high-quality frozen fish. And there's where those of us at Simply Seafood® have put our focus. Our goal is to provide you with high quality, convenient frozen seafood portions that you can afford to serve as often as you like.

Fortunately, Americans are learning that high-quality frozen seafood can be every bit as good as fresh. By freezing fish right after it is caught or harvested, all the attributes of fresh fish can be retained. And with proper thawing (over night in the refrigerator is best) and cooking (previously frozen fish will cook a little faster than fresh fish) frozen fish can be indistinguishable from fresh. And, of course, frozen fish can get to the market far more inexpensively than fresh fish, which often has to be flown thousands of miles to a store.

So if you can't find what you want in the fresh seafood case, take a look at what's happening in the frozen seafood section. I think you'll be surprised at the quality - and value - of the seafood there.

All the Best,

Peter Redmayne
President
Simply Seafood®