These inquir'ies were limited to tuna, with tunalike products not be- 

 ing considered. 



(Vhile many packers believe that the existing standard tuna pack 

 is all that the housewife needs or wants, no large-scale attempt has 

 ever been made to put up a mass produced tuna product consisting of 

 tuna and some other food ingredient(s) which would be ready to serve 

 by merely opening the can and heating. Several such products have 

 been tried on a small scale in the past, but with the high cost of 

 production (and associated high selling price) they have never been 

 popular. One large tuna packer and another small processor are now 

 in process of bringing out such a mass produced product. A few mem- 

 bers of the tuna industry believe that such products may greatly ex- 

 pand the demand for tuna, but until the success or failure of this 

 new venture can be determined, it is difficult to predict the future 

 of such items. 



The armed forces have expressed an interest in such products 

 and , if they were to be made available in can size to fit the United 

 States Army ration carton, there mi^t be a considerable market for 

 them. 



Highly seasoned, smoked, and other specialty tuna products have 

 been produced for many years in small volume but plant operators do 

 not believe there is any possibility of greatly increasing their sale. 



Palatability tests have been conducted in the Fish and midlife 

 Service laboratories on some of the products mentioned above. All of 

 the products were generally acceptable but some improvement was desir- 

 able. In the midwest some brokers and other distributors of canned 

 tuna believe that tuna spreads could find narkets in that area. A 

 few distributors on the West Coast are moderately optimistic to en- 

 thusiastic over the possibilities of prepared products that the house- 

 wife needs only to heat and serve, such as tuna aril noodles. Some 

 hold that such products are the answer to a modem trend, that con- 

 sumers are thus reached who might not otherwise- be buyers of the con- 

 ventional canned tuna. 



Fresh and frozen tuna has been and is being sold in some areas. 

 During a price dispute with canners in 1951j a California fishermen's 

 union disposed of a volume of albacore in Los Angeles and San Francis- 

 co by direct sales to consumers. Of 1,400,000 pounds sold by the 

 union, all but about ten percent were sold fresh » This ten percent 



79 



