To tackle the US’s woefully low seafood consumption, drastic measures are being taken. Enter tuna that looks like chicken nuggets and salmon masquerading as beef jerky
T
he seafood industry is trying to tackle a slippery problem: the US has never developed a taste for fish. Americans will eat canned cheese product and put marshmallow “fluff” on their sandwiches, but they seem to balk at eating fish. The average American consumes about 19lb (under 9kg) of the stuff a year, while the global average is 45lb. Over in Iceland, they’re really getting their omega-3s in: they lead the world with around 200lb of seafood a year.
Still, the tide may be turning: Big Fish has come up with a cunning plan to crack the US market. You know how there are sneaky ways of hiding veggies in recipes for picky toddlers? That’s basically the strategy. Except instead of hiding spinach in a chocolate pancake, the plan is to make fish look like meat. Think tuna that looks like chicken nuggets and salmon sticks that look like beef jerky. It’s not quite fake meat – it’s Fishy Meat™. Yum.
Obviously, this isn’t a completely new idea: plant-based meat really went mainstream when it was put in the meat department, rather than the “vegetarian” aisle. And fish-as-meat marketing, in the guise of tuna steaks and salmon burgers, has been around for a while. However, according to recent AP reporting from the Seafood Expo circuit (one of the coolest places to see and be seen), it looks like the surreptitious seafood trend has really started to take off.
