Exotic Products From the Seafood Industry

Several seafood industry veterans, gathered at a recent convention, said that most fish processors are working toward improving the quality and image of their products rather than developing new items. As such, there was little in the way of breakthrough food technology on display at Sea Fare International 1990 last week in Long Beach.

Even so, with the incredible diversity that typifies the global seafood market there are usually several items that, if nothing else, warrant mention. These include products as diverse as gooseneck barnacles, giant red king crab from the Soviet Union, sea urchin and an electric oyster shucker.

A Hard Sell--One of the most unusual seafoods on display was the sinister-looking gooseneck barnacles being grown and marketed by Ecomar, Inc. The Goleta, Calif.,-based firm is best known for growing mussels on off-shore oil platforms near Santa Barbara.

In recent years, however, the company has also begun cultivating the goosenecks, a distant relative of the shrimp family. Jill Meek, of Ecomar, says that the worm-like tentacles with a small shell at their tip are actually a delicacy in Spain and Portugal. In those countries, the barnacles are regarded along the same lines as the most prized Beluga caviar would be in this nation. Meek’s barnacles, in fact, sell for as much as $100 a pound in Portugal.

“They look very threatening, but they don’t actually bite,” said Meek. But she concedes that it is difficult to get even adventurous Southern Californians to try barnacles for the first time.

“You should see the looks I get when I go into a restaurant and try to sell these things,” she said.

The sales trip is considered a success if she can merely convince the chef to prepare the goosenecks, let alone eat them. Despite her efforts, Meek has yet to entice any California market or restaurant into carrying the barnacles.

“People just aren’t willing to try them,” Meek said with some resignation.

But don’t feel too sorry for Meek. Her firm sells its entire harvest to Europe.

For the record, barnacles are boiled in salted water, skinned and then very thinly sliced on a diagonal and served as sashimi, marinated or incorporated into a seafood pasta dish.

Though Meek recommends serving barnacles in the Japanese sashimi presentation, she has yet to generate any interest among the Japanese seafood buyers.

“The Japanese,” Meek said, “just giggle at them.”

Seeking Sea Urchin--One California oddity that the Japanese are wild about, however, is sea urchin. In this case, as well, it is the American consumers who are a bit reluctant when it comes to this yellow, paste-like delicacy.

Divers pull about 50 million pounds of sea urchin from the California coast each year, but only about 6% of the total catch is actually the edible meat. The animal’s exterior is a spiny globe, like a baseball covered with long thorns.

Andres Martinez, of Josephina Fish Co. in Santa Barbara, has been diving for sea urchin since 1975. Most of his product, or about 80%, is exported to Japan.

“Only 20% of our catch is sold locally to Los Angeles and a few other U.S. cities,” Martinez said. “I would like to switch that around, but the most difficult part of the business is trying to market sea urchin.”

The shellfish is a staple in sushi bars and can sell for as much as $80 a pound in Japan. In Los Angeles the prices is less, but still an impressive $36 a pound.

Martinez, whose firm harvests about two million pounds of sea urchin each year, said that he has had some luck in expanding the American appetite for these unusual tasting shellfish.

“You know, Houston is a good market for us. That’s were people really appreciate sea urchins,” he said.

Crabs and Perestroika--The dramatic political changes in Eastern Europe have also extended to the seafood business. A joint venture between an American firm and a Soviet government agency has resulted in expanded imports of red King crab from Russian waters. The venture comes at a time when the domestic harvest of the giant crab has dramatically declined.

The company behind this ambitious effort is the U.S.-U.S.S.R Marine Resources International based in Seattle.

“King crab with its high dollar value per pound generates U.S. dollars so the Soviets can upgrade their fishing industry,” said Dennis Fee, a Marine Resources executive. “We are just putting U.S. fishing technology in the Soviet Union and they are about 30 to 40 years behind the rest of the world.”

Fee said that the project, whose ownership is split evenly between American and Soviet interests, is marketing three to four million pounds of king crab annually from the Kamchatka Peninsula, which is about 500 miles east of Vladivostok.

“It’s a unique situation in that there is this resource--king crab--in the Soviet Far East that has not been fished or exploited in the past. It’s good for the Soviets to take some of the crab out of the water and sell them on the world market.”

The influx of Soviet crab is timely. The Alaskan harvest of the crustacean stood at 189 million pounds a year in the mid 1970s. Today, the annual catch has dropped to about 10 million pounds, Fee said.

Marine Resources’ success to date has placed it second behind only Pepsico in terms of U.S.-Soviet food ventures.

Power Opener--As many of the firms marketing oysters at Sea Fare struggled with knives and gloves to open the mollusks in order to provide free samples to convention-goers, one exhibitor had little or no problems. After working on his electric oyster shucker for several years, Jim Harris of the Blue Point Oyster Co., Inc., has finally perfected the gadget. Now named Proshucker, the device takes the risk out of prying open stubborn shellfish.

“This product virtually eliminates the liability of using an oyster knife,” said Harris, whose firm is based in Los Angeles. “It allows a shucker to go from a pointed knife to a rounded tip. You can even use a butter knife.”

The advancement is made possible by a rotating cork-screw-like drill bit that pops open the oyster and allows the shucker to finish the job with a simple flip of a rounded knife.

“The No. 1 workman’s compensation claim in the food industry is knife cuts,” said Harris, whose device is meant to eliminate the injuries at oyster bars everywhere.

The Proshucker sells in the $300-range, according to Harris, who saw the need for such a product after experiencing repeated difficulties during his efforts to teach clients the proper way of opening oysters.