Oceans of Options

July 2003

Oceans of Options

By Deborah SilverContributing Editor

Seafood continues to stimulate the American palate, and foodservice operators are responding with increasingly exotic fare and more menu selections. While seafood staples such as salmon and tuna remain popular center-of-the-plate options, today’s restaurant patron may also choose from such trendy dishes as halibut cheeks, escolar and Hawaiian fish like opakapaka, ono and opab.

“Per capita consumption of seafood has risen due in large part to heightened consumer awareness of the health and nutritional benefits of including more fish in the diet, and the fact that seafood represents a good value as a source of animal protein,” says James Carlberg, president, Kent SeaTech Corp., a San Diego-based producer of farm-raised striped bass. “In addition, fish offers consumers a tremendous variety from which to choose, with flavors to please just about every palate.”

Species certainly abound, from farm-raised fish to those that swim in open waters. Indeed, improved harvesting and sustainable fishing practices, the growth of aquaculture, and higher-quality frozen and value-added products make it easier than ever to include fish of all forms on restaurant menus. And foodservice operators are responding with creative, cost-effective and marketable dishes.

Surf’s upO’Charley’s, Inc. recently changed several of its seafood menu offerings from limited-time to permanent menu items, including grilled or blackened salmon. The Nashville, TN-based chain also continues to introduce new limited-time seafood promotions, such as Cajun gumbo made with blue crabmeat; barbecue shrimp sautéed in chipotle barbecue sauce; yellowfin tuna steak; and a seafood combo consisting of whitefish fillets, sea scallops, shrimp and a crab cake.

“Fish is seen as healthy and good for you,” says Paul Schramkowski, director of product development for O’Charley’s. “In addition, customers’ interest in fish has been piqued by the bolder flavorings used to cook it and the variety of cooking techniques that lend themselves to preparing fish.”

Chevys Mexican Restaurants, based in Emeryville, CA, is testing new seafood options, including a ceviche appetizer made with orange roughy and an ahi tuna entrée, at a unit in California. If successful, those items will be incorporated into the chain’s menu at 164 units nationwide.

Salads showcasing seafood as the main protein are also gaining in popularity. The Ground Round Grill & Bar, based in Braintree, MA, and Pizzeria Uno, a subsidiary of West Roxbury, MA. based Uno Restaurant Corp., recently put shrimp Caesar salad on their menus, while Copelands of New Orleans, based in Metairie, LA., and Columbus, OH-based Damon’s Grill, have added grilled-salmon Caesar salad.

Raw dealsSushi and sashimi bars are also proliferating across the United States, and many non-Japanese restaurants are getting in on the action by adding raw fish to their menus. According to the National Restaurant Association, Washington, D.C., in the last five years of the 1990s, sushi consumption grew by 40%. “We’re getting phone calls from restaurant owners and chefs from all over the country who want to incorporate sushi into their menus,” says Phillip Yi, director of the California Sushi Academy in Venice, CA. “It’s perceived as a healthful alternative to such American staples as steak and potatoes and pizza.”

If foodservice operators plan to offer a sushi bar, they have to consider a few things. First, the restaurant needs to consider cost. If it already has a raw bar in place, then it is not a problem because the raw bar can double as a sushi bar. Second, offering a sushi bar means hiring or training a sushi chef. And third, the restaurant owner or manager needs to find a reliable supplier of raw fish products.

Among the latest non-Japanese restaurants to begin offering sushi and sashimi are Shaw’s Crab House, owned and operated by Chicago-based Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. The restaurant recently hired a sushi chef to develop and oversee the concept’s expanded raw seafood bar, which opened this spring. Shaw’s does not call the addition a “sushi bar” because it does not want to blur its identity as an American fish house, but managing partner Tod Barber credits its sushi offerings with attracting a younger crowd to the concept’s cocktail hour. “That’s added business for us, because our dining room is still full,” he says.

Maki, a rolled sushi wrapped in seaweed, and nigiri sushi, the fish-topped rice portions of sushi that are always served in pairs, have already been introduced in Shaw’s main dining room, and sales are so brisk that they are rivaling Shaw’s traditional oyster-bar offerings in volume.

The Manhattan Sky Bar in the newly remodeled Grand Hyatt New York, which only serves appetizers and a limited selection of desserts from 3 to 11:30 p.m., features seven sushi and sashimi selections on its roster and is considering adding several more. “We wanted to have a hip, cutting-edge concept with exciting, trendy food,” says Norbert Relecker, Hyatt’s regional food and beverage director. “Sushi and sashimi were the vehicles to make that happen.”

Even concepts that specialize in seafood are adding raw-fish delicacies to their menus. King’s Seafood Co. of Long Beach, CA, operator of 11 seafood restaurants in Southern California, including the five-unit King’s Fish House and King Crab Lounge, plans to roll out a line of sushi items within a year. Since King’s restaurants already operate in-house oyster bars, adding sushi and sashimi is a logical way to sell more raw products. Raw or partly raw dishes, such as seared ahi tuna, are already big sellers in the main dining rooms.

“Sushi has moved into the mainstream as a menu item,” says Carl Citron, district manager of Sodexho Campus Services for Babson College in Wellesley, MA. In partnership with AFC Sushi, of Rancho Dominguez, CA, and its Southern Tsunami concept, Babson boasts a stable of full-time sushi chefs who prepare authentic dishes for the school’s catering program. From California rolls to eel, shrimp and salmon sushi, all items are prepared on-premise. Dollar volume ranges from $800 to $900 per day, and the average check is $4.15 to $9.50 for individual-sized portions and customer platters.

For a number of years, Sodexho tried offering sushi from companies that prepackaged the seafood item, but the company was uncomfortable with the level of quality. This current program now operates in Sodexho’s other contracted universities on the East Coast, including University of Massachusetts in Boston and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Other campus contractors, including Philadelphia-based Aramark, are adopting a national strategy to make sushi available to their campus accounts. “It’s definitely something kids want,” says Scott Zahren, executive regional chef for campus services, representing 52 universities. “If we don’t offer sushi, they go elsewhere to find it.”New York University Medical Center and Mount Sinai Hospital have also introduced Japanese-inspired sushi in the form of California rolls, a type of maki made with avocado and crabmeat. “People want to experience new and different things,” says Carol Sherman, senior director of the food and nutrition network that covers those two facilities.

Simple allureFor some noncommercial operations, simple seafood items are enough to buoy the menu plan. Augusta Medical Center in Fishersville, VA, for example, uses cod tails extensively. According to Rod Hooper, director of hospitality services, “They’re relatively inexpensive, have an excellent flavor profile and are a good, sturdy meat.”

Seafood is in demand at retirement homes due to its healthy attributes. HDS Services, a foodservice and hospitality management firm based in Farmington Hills, MI, now serves seafood two to three times a week at Marquette House, a retirement community in Westland, MI. Dishes include shrimp with basil and cheese in phyllo; and salmon stuffed with shrimp, bacon and mushrooms.

Guest Services of Fairfax, VA, whose foodservice operations are found in such prestigious facilities as the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court, relies strongly on farm-raised catfish. “It’s a very clean product,” says Claude Broome, corporate chef for Guest Services. “It has a neutral flavor that you can incorporate into just about any kind of cuisine, from European to Caribbean dishes.” Included in Broome’s repertoire are Jamaican catfish and catfish Parmesan.

In addition, Broome notes that Spanish tapas have become popular, and many tapas dishes are based around seafood, especially shrimps, scallops, anchovies, smoked salmon and tuna. “I feature tapas when serving cocktail and hors d’oeuvres, especially at white-collar events, since tapas are considered upscale items,” he says.Some seafood is becoming more economical for the noncommercial operator to purchase, according to Broome, due to the availability of Asian imports. He pays $10 a pound for crabmeat from Japan and Vietnam, for example, whereas the domestic product costs twice that amount. However, quality can vary with nondomestic seafood, so purchasers have to be careful, he says.

Shell gameShrimp has moved into the top spot as America’s most widely consumed seafood, supplanting the decades-long front-runner, tuna. In 2001, Americans consumed 850 million pounds of shrimp, according to the National Fisheries Institute in Arlington, VA. Such growth results from expanded and improved aquaculture, higher yields that have resulted in more favorable market prices, and better product consistency.

“Twenty years ago, we ate shrimp during special meal occasions,” says Jim Charters, regional sales manager for Ocean Gardens Products in Upper Saddle River, NJ. “Now we find it at almost every place you can buy food —supermarkets, fast-food chains, white-tablecloth restaurants, college cafeterias — and that’s due to fish farming.”

Indeed, shrimp is showing up on menus in nearly every industry segment and in very diverse fare. “People love shrimp because the taste is there, the texture is right and customers are familiar with it,” says Kenny Bowers, executive chef for Dallas-based Rockfish Seafood Grill. “It takes on almost any flavor, so chefs can do a lot with it. In addition, many customers regard shrimp as a delicacy, so there’s perceived value.”

This small crustacean plays a significant role on the Rockfish menu. Served tableside as an appetizer, shrimp is tossed with avocado and tomato salsa. As an entrée, it is accompanied by andouille sausage or is batter-fried, topped with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, and served with linguine and marinara sauce in shrimp parmigiana.

Shaw’s also relies heavily on shrimp. At its Schaumburg, IL, location, shrimp is used in as many as 15 dishes in the restaurant’s Red Shell Lounge. “We offer a large variety because of shrimp’s huge popularity,” says Barber. Although every size comes into play, from popcorn to jumbo varieties, 20-per-pound shrimp are most often used at Shaw’s.

According to Barber, the concept’s strategy to ensure the best prices and product consistency calls for placing a full year’s order at the start of the shrimp season. In order to make the best purchase, Shaw’s prepares about 12 varieties of shrimp, including wild and farm-raised from various parts of the world, using each in three to four applications. Only after judging product on a variety of factors — quality, price, texture, flavor and consistency — will Shaw’s place its shrimp orders.

Flik International Corp, the Rye Brook, NY-based contract foodservice division of Compass Group, with North American headquarters in Charlotte, NC, considers shrimp a good fit for its monthly “Around the World” promotion, which features ethnic ingredients in dishes such as Indian curries and Chinese rice bowls. “There are a lot of ways to fit shrimp into a menu, justify its price and stay in line with food costs,” says Flik’s corporate chef Nicole Satin. “Each client has a different ‘point of pain’ — the menu price beyond which customers won’t spend. Shrimp lets us stay below that point.”

To ensure adequate profit margins, Satin uses shrimp for extended-line dishes, such as stir-fry or pasta, where the amount of protein is 2 to 3 oz. versus the standard 6 oz. for center-of-the-plate applications.

Catching onMany operators use frozen, value-added and convenience seafood products to round out their seafood selections. Advanced methods of processing, both at sea and in large facilities located a short distance offshore, have led to improved “fresh” frozen seafood products. Not only are these items relatively inexpensive, they are also available year round and can be used in a variety of menu applications. In addition, they come in a wide range of choices, including thaw-and-bake gourmet appetizers, consistently sized meaty fillets for grilling or broiling, stuffed fish roulades and fish croquettes.

At Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, traditional Asian appetizers are made from value-added seafood products, including shrimp toast that can be either fried or baked, and shrimp and crab dumplings that can be either steamed or grilled. “I don’t have the luxury of making everything from scratch, so these products are a great help,” says Steve Miller, Cornell’s executive catering chef. “They’re excellent quality, look like we made them from scratch, taste great and allow us to maintain our cost parameters.”

In the past, frozen seafood products got a bad rap from chefs and consumers for having mushy texture and poor taste once thawed and cooked. But two new methods of preserving “fresh” frozen fish — marinade and brine — have given the product new life.

The marinade technology injects natural flavors, spices and binding agents into the fish, resulting in reduced moisture loss, and consistently moist and tender products when prepared. The process employs all natural ingredients and is adaptable for several species of seafood. It is presently used for natural and breaded cod, halibut, salmon and pollock.

The patented Japanese brine technology takes portion-controlled, boned fillets, packages them and immerses them in a slurry of frozen brine crystals kept at -40¾C. The fish are frozen quickly, almost completely eliminating compound ice crystals in the flesh, which break the cellular membranes during traditional freezing processes and cause a mushy texture. The system is currently used for salmon.Convenience, of course, has always been a key factor for restaurants in seafood product development, as they try to hold down labor costs.

At the same time, retailers try to make it easier for consumers to eat more seafood. The result has been increased cross-fertilization between restaurant and retail operations, deriving in large part from vendors that ship to both restaurants and food stores. In fact, seafood suppliers often develop a product for foodservice operations and then modify the more popular items for retail.

San Pedro, CA-based Contessa Food Products recently introduced four convenience meals to retail, (including kung pao shrimp and paella with seafood and chicken) that are patterned after dishes it markets to foodservice operators. Products for the company’s retail line, which now stands at 14, range from $4.89 to $6.99 and are designed to go from bag to stove to table in 10 minutes.

Phillips Foods, Inc. of Baltimore, which supplies crab and other seafood products to restaurants and grocery stores across the United States, has begun marketing its shredded-meat variety crab cake, an alternative to its traditional lump meat product, as well as coconut shrimp and mahi-mahi in retail stores. The company historically sold these products exclusively to foodservice operations.

Phillips is also taking advantage of the growing popularity of seafood in another arena. The company, which operates seven full-service restaurants in the Maryland and Washington, D.C., markets, is introducing a quick-service restaurant, Phillips Famous Seafood, as well as adding an additional full-service unit this year. Its first fast-food eatery will debut in the Baltimore-Washington market this year. The new brand will have potential for modification into a fast-casual operation. By year-end, the company expects to have three quick-service and fast-casual restaurants in operation serving signature Phillips products, such as crab cakes, crab soups and seafood wraps.

“All of this will be a mechanism for our Phillips Foods manufacturing division to expand sales,” says the company’s marketing vice president, Honey Konicoff. Phillips quick-service expansion plan is an outgrowth of the company’s partnering with HMSHost Corporation of Bethesda, MD, which has introduced the Phillips brand in airports, sports bars and malls.

Other seafood restaurateurs are looking to ramp up their growth. King’s is reaching beyond its Southern California roots, seeking potential restaurant sights for its King’s Fish House and King Crab Lounge in the northern portion of its home state, as well as in the Las Vegas area. The concept features a broad menu of two-dozen oyster varieties and four-dozen starters, soups, salads and sandwiches in the Lounge, four-dozen grilled, broiled, sautéed and fried seafood dishes, as well as some Lounge-menu items in the dining room.

“One of the great things about seafood is its seasonality,” says Sam King, CEO of King’s. “Hawaiian fish in late winter; salmon and soft-shell crabs in the spring; spiny lobsters and swordfish in late summer and early fall. It’s always changing, which is a big part of its marketing success.”

Deborah Silver is a business journalist based in the Chicago area who specializes in the foodservice industry. Silver’s coverage has included restaurant chains, food safety, industry and consumer trends, financing, and government policy, and she has written articles for numerous publications, including the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post.

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