Some fresh ideas for frozen seafood 



At least two seafood processors, one 

 in North Carolina and the other in 

 South Carolina, are trying to change 

 the public's attitude about frozen 

 seafood. 



Jim Hudson, owner of Cap'n Jim's 

 Seafood in Zebulon, is struggling to sell 

 grocers on the idea of freeze-and-thaw 

 seafood, and he's using a new tray 

 design to do so. Gary Swift, president 

 of Port City Processing Company, 

 Inc., in Charleston, S.C., is using slick 

 marketing techniques and a special 

 vacuum package to get his frozen 

 seafood into supermarket frozen-food 

 counters. Both men believe that good 

 freezing and packaging techniques, 

 fresh fish and a marketing strategy will 

 help frozen seafood become a larger 

 part of the American diet. 



In a processing plant more than 100 

 miles from the fishing docks, Jim Hud- 

 son has developed a tray pack that 

 allows him to freeze and thaw fish in 

 the same package. Hudson has been 

 working on his idea for almost five 

 years and expects to spend $2 million 

 to get his freeze-and-thaw seafood into 

 the grocery stores. 



Under Hudson's method, fresh fish, 



no more than two days old, Hudson 

 says, are trucked to the Zebulon plant. 

 The fish are then filleted or dressed, in- 

 dividually quick-frozen and glazed to 

 prevent rancidity and freezer burn. 

 They are packaged in one-pound por- 

 tions in Hudson's thick, padded trays, 

 which are designed to absorb the 

 moisture lost from the fish as it thaws, 

 keeping it looking dry. The fish are 

 stored in vacuum-packaged master 

 boxes at -10° F until they are sold. 



Once sold, usually to supermarket 

 chains, the fish are shipped to the 

 chain's distribution center where they 

 are thawed under 33° to 34° F 

 refrigeration. But Hudson would 

 prefer that the fish go to the stores 

 before it is thawed. "If the super- 

 market meat managers would thaw the 

 fish properly," Hudson says, "Then 

 they could assure themselves of no 

 spoilage." 



Hudson's fish remain in refrigerated 

 meat counters three-and-one-half days 

 before meat managers are instructed to 

 pull them. "If frozen fish are handled 

 well, my freeze-and-thaw fish can taste 

 just as good as fresh seafood," he says. 

 "But the key is to start with a fresh 

 product. Frozen seafood has gotten a 



bad name because many processors 

 were freezing the fish they couldn't sell 

 fresh as a last resort to keep from los- 

 ing money. Freezing doesn't make the 

 fish good again. It's no wonder the 

 public thought frozen seafood was 

 bad." 



When thawed, Hudson's freeze-and- 

 thaw fish looks almost identical to its 

 fresh counterpart. But the label reads 

 "Safe to refreeze and refrigerate," a 

 sign to the consumer that the fish has 

 been frozen. 



Hudson claims other processors sell 

 thawed seafood but never label it as 

 such. 



"I sometimes sell my frozen fish to 

 other wholesalers who thaw it and sell 

 it as fresh to the same chain stores who 

 won't buy my fish when I tell them up 

 front that it is frozen," Hudson says. 



If offered a consistently high-quality 

 product, the public would learn to ac- 

 cept freeze-and-thaw seafood and like 

 it, Hudson says. But his problem may 

 be getting chain-store fish buyers to 

 stock his product. Hudson believes a 

 good education and marketing 

 program may solve that problem. He 

 has already hired a marketing research 

 company to find out how consumers 

 prefer their fish (whole or filleted), and 

 when fish sell best. 



Despite marketing research and the 

 time and money spent on developing 

 his freeze-and-thaw processing 

 methods, Hudson is struggling to keep 

 his processing plant open. "Right now 

 I'm hanging on by my toenails," he 

 says. "I may spend my last penny 

 getting this thing going." 



"Doing business in the 80s" is the 

 theme Gary Swift uses to run Port 

 City Processing Company in 

 Charleston, S.C. Swift believes most 

 seafood processors are behind the 

 times in technology and marketing 

 techniques. "Most of the processors 

 aren't willing to spend the time and 

 money needed to do anything new," he 

 says. "They are conservative by 

 nature and as long as they're making a 

 little profit they're content. But be- 

 cause of that they're still doing 

 business the way it was done in the 

 nineteen-thirties. ' ' 



Swift is using new technology to get 

 his frozen fish into supermarkets. 

 Working with seafood specialists at 

 Cornell University in New York, Swift 

 developed a film he uses to vacuum- 

 pack his frozen fish. Swift sells the fish 



Photo by Neil Caudle 



Hudson 's specially designed tray packs 



