The Man Who Got Americans to Eat Pollock | Hacker News Reader

The Man Who Got Americans to Eat Pollock

bloomberg.com

66 pointsmudil55 comments

It's all about marketing and perception.

When I moved North my first year Salmon fishing in Alaska I watched as Northerners through back hundreds of pounds of Chum Salmon, because it's soft, mushy and crap, they said. It's commonly called Dog Salmon because the locals only keep it to feed to their sled dogs.

A couple of months later I was in Vancouver, and was more than a little surprised to see Chum Salmon for sale for about $25/lb. It was labeled as "Highly renowned for it's soft, pink flesh".

Convince people something is good, and when they have little or no alternative, they'll go for it.

Lobster used to be used as garden fertiliser and was a mark of poverty eating it.

My dad grew up on a tiny rock(just a few square miles) in the Caribbean. He had to "raise" his fish pots every morning before school(primary school at that) to get fresh fish for breakfast and the day's lunch.

Fish was plentiful then and so was lobster. In fact the lobster was a nuisance because it would sometime get into their fish pots and they had little value to locals or people of the surrounding larger islands.

This one time he and his cousin caught a few in the pot and had them in him small row boat, his cousin forgot to carry a bale to bale out water from the boat. There was a yacht anchored nearby and my dad went to ask for a container to bale out the water. The french owner of the yacht didn't have one so be opened a big can of baked bean, quickly tossed its content overboard and gave them the can. My dad and his cousin could not believe what they had just witnessed; To them it was such a waste. Baked bean was something you get from the mainland and it was not easily affordable to them.

The french Yacht owner then asked if he could have a lobster and said that him and his wife loved it so much. My dad was taken by how the man spoke about his love for lobster and just gave him all they had in the boat. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

I grew up a fish snob living in the Caribbean unfortunately and most of the fish served in the U.S at chain restaurants(and even non chain restaurants) I would consider trash fish.

Having fished Pollock I can confirm that they are typically riddled with nematodes, not sure why, perhaps it's their diet - the article notes they are "ground fish" which might be a euphemism for bottom feeders.

Generally, I think the historical low-value of some fish is a product of fishermen being enmeshed with the markets and communities where the fish they catch is sold. We have lost that for the most part, and therefore lower quality fish becomes salable, particularly if it is heavily processed (hence the fast-food chains being the first to pick it up).

But yeah, you're eating worms buddy.

Lots of fishes have worms. In the Bay Area/Northern CA I fish for Pacific jack mackerel, and practically every fish has worms. I don't think they are considered bottom fishes, though.

Nearly all wild fish have worms https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/d755kx/almost-every-...

Not really a surprise. Before sanitation massive quantities of people had them too. Parasites are still a problem in much of the world for humans and animals alike.

Might it be possible to kill the worms with x-rays or something?

The usual way is to kill them with heat when the fish is cooked

dead fish and dead worms and dead bacteria and dead...

bring on the protein.

Salmon are also notorious for having huge worms but they're by no means a low-quality fish

Create a need, then fill it. He managed to convince a few very large seafood-serving companies that this cheap and abundant fish was actually what they wanted, so they bought it -- from him -- in vast quantities.

So... Make sure, in your startup, that you're convincing your customers that they need what you've got?

> Create a need, then fill it.

Oh, and throw money at getting laws passed to take out the competition.

It doesn't seem especially egregious to me to restrict fishery in US waters to US-based companies.

Depends on how US companies behave in other people's waters.

Not really, to me. That's the business of the countries that own those waters.

Well that's right neighbourly of you. Have you considered running the State Department?

There is ensuring that American actors adhere to the standards set by the countries they're operating in (which we should do).

And then there is ensuring the standards set by the countries they're operating in match the standards set in the United States (which is something we should only do if it is in the interest of the United States).

Create a need, then fill it.

Wait, this is the exact opposite of what everyone around here argues about. It's always "Identify a pain point", or find something existing that people need. NOT create a product and then build the market.

I think there is definitely a place for creating a need, so I agree, but it's certainly counter to the startup mantra.

I'm not sure if identifying pain is the opposite of creating need. The pain here was fast foods need for cheap fish that has a reliable supply. The need was created when he was able to convince these companies that his fish supply chain was their best solution.

If anyone wants to try reproducing this in the Midwest we have Asian Carp which you could probably do the same thing to. I think some restaurants are already attempting to do so.

As a kid my dad and I would bow hunt these. They have a certain season where they'll breach the surface, letting you get an arrow off easily. We'd smoke them and fill up an entire refrigerator in the basement (No limit as they are invasive), pretty decent tasting.

I think there is a lot of squeamishness about this kind of thing because they are afraid that people will develop a taste for the invasive species and then deliberately spread them. But lots of cultures eat these.

There are already people fishing up nuisance carp, though they overnight it to Asian markets.

I don't think I've ever had pollock, or even seen it for sale. Does it go into fish sticks, or what?

(The "swordfish" I had in a Palo Alto eatery a few days ago seemed suspiciously soft and fatty for swordfish.)

Yes.

http://www.tridentseafoods.com/Products/Detail?pid=25546ab0-...

http://www.ljsilvers.com/news-events/item/117-introducing-ha...

If its some kind of white fish and its not named, its frequently something like pollock.

It's also the major component of most imitation crab meat.

If you encounter something that's just labelled "fish", it's probably pollock.

(and, yes, that includes fish sticks)

Crab/seafood salad, California rolls (sometimes), other things that have "fake crab".

In Scandinavia pollock is part of the traditional cuisine. Some people fry it up [1], but it's mostly found in things like fish balls [2] and fish cakes [3] where the meat has been turned into a paste (other types of fish such as haddock are also used).

According to the first article, pollock is low-fat/high-protein, is sustainably harvested in Scandinavia, and is also one of the cheapest fish you can buy.

[1] https://lisevonkrogh.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/knallbra-sikri...

[2] https://rema-no-prod-media.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/sys-re...

[3] https://eu-central-1.tchyn.io/unitedbloggers-production/uplo...

Pretty amusing that this article (1) doesn't explain how this guy got Americans to eat pollock, and (2) seems to be written exclusively based on assertions on Trident's corporate website.

It's worth mentioning that the logistics and engineering side of the Pollock/Surimi production was just as interesting. Paraphrasing the book from memory, https://www.amazon.com/Catching-Deckload-Dreams-Bundrant-Sea..., Trident initially contracted the Japanese and their method/machines to produce Surimi from Pollock, but eventually switched to German-made machines and a more efficient production line methodology they came up with themselves - I believe they used the Pollock not worthy of quick-freeze for the Surimi instead of dedicating a production line specific to it.

If it tastes good, then it's not trash.

There's a fair bit of nutritional research and a few pop-sci books that cover it saying that in fact, if it tastes good, it probably is trash. If we define trash as food with a lot of caloric content but little nutritional content.

Much of today's food is designed to be addictive. There is little other consideration in its design or creation.

There is a reason there's an obesity epidemic in Western nations.

The reason may simply be that food is abundant and cheap in Western nations. I don't see that as a bad thing.

I don't think so, considering obesity has skyrocketed since the 90s and I don't think we were starving then.

I think research points to a lack of physical activity, at least in children, as a casual factor.

Unhealthy food is abundant and cheap. Healthy food can be cheap too but it is not abundant.

Today's food is designed to be attractive to consumers -- manufacturers have made something people want.

Some people want cod liver oil.

Some of the food that I buy/eat, I buy because I believe it is good for me, not because I believe that it is the tastiest option. If I'm addicted to avoiding heart disease, that sounds okay to me :)!

Go to any Michelin star restaurant. The last thing they care about is nutritional value. Their primary concern is taste.

Food quality is defined by taste, not nutritional value. This applies both at the low end and high end.

Their primary concern is getting rich people to spend three hundred dollars per person. I've been to high end restaurants. It's not about food at all. It's a combination of a status symbol and show business. They're putting on a show for you with tiny, barely noticeable bits of food, and you are overpaying for it to show your date or business partner that you can afford it.

Haute cuisine is indeed often like that, but the Michelin guide is different. They've frequently removed stars from chefs for resting on their laurels.

Some day I'll get a reservation to Alinea... sigh

"At Alinea, there aren't any à la carte dishes; instead you feast on the restaurant's 22-course tasting menu, which costs between $210 and $265 per person, depending on the day. Additional wine pairings range from the standard $135 per person to $195 for the reserved pairing, which features rare pours."

Which kind of perfectly follows the description. 300 dollars per person, show with minuscule quantities of food.

Fine dining generally has small portions, but there tend to be many courses and they really like to use meat so it actually adds up to a very substantial meal. If you ever go to one pace yourself, otherwise the last few courses will be quite unpleasant.

I've been to some restaurants with crazy number of courses. Last time I went I got to gorge on a steak that was significantly smaller than a matchbox. Honestly, the only good thing about these restaurants were wine pairings.

Your criticism is like saying a programmer is bad because they didn't solve the problem you're interested in when it's not their job to solve your problem, and they didn't use enough lines of code to do it.

Haute cuisine has always seemed highly experimental to me. And I think that's the point. To find new ways to cook food. Often in ways that are extremely impractical. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Some people enjoy the weird, others don't.

But to say that these chefs aren't driven by taste or that the prices are set that way so that their customers can boast? You must be a troll.

If you don't like them so much. Stop going to them!

Then save your 300USD and buy a month's worth of Soylent. I'll gladly eat tasty food in your absence. :)

When there are 22 courses, you don't want each one to be very big or you'll never get to the end of it.

How do you figure that 22 courses is a minuscule amount of food? Sure, since it is a tasting menu, the portions of each course are going to be smaller than if you ordered them in a non-tasting course. Overall, though, that's 22 different foods. This will probably take at least 1.5 to 2 hours for the eating, so it'll seem like more. Plus wine, if you should choose it. Additionally, I'm pretty sure some of the dining is the experience itself - at least for most of us, who rarely spend $300 on a group for dinner, let alone on one person.

And it'll probably be a bit better than fast food.

Besides, you can easily do things like have dessert, a bedtime snack, eat a quality breakfast and/or lunch. Or, you know, spend your money on something more fitting to you.

Edit: Forgot a line.

I don't know where the complaints about "tiny, barely noticeable bits of food" is coming from (other than ignorance) -- every high end restaurant I've been to, including those with tasting menus with many portions, has always left me very full (and it's not like I get full easily). The sum total of food across all the courses is a large volume, even ignoring the fact that the food is a lot richer/heavier than typical meals.

> Food quality is defined by taste, not nutritional value. This applies both at the low end and high end.

I think that's true - poor people need to choose calories in a palatable form, while rich people can pursue taste - but in between, there is a wide variety of food that can trade off taste for nutritional value.

Avocado, salmon, and tuna taste really good. Are they trash then? What a stupid conclusion to make.

Avocado tastes like... nothing? I never understood the fascination with it. Maybe I'm eating the wrong ones.

Or you forgot to add salt.

I use an app called "Good Fish Guide" to show me how sustainable the fish I buy is.

Alaskan pollock gets the second best rating.

http://www.goodfishguide.org/fish/28/Pollock,%20Alaska,%20Wa...

It sounds as if he made a lot of his money by regulatory capture and anticompetitive lobbying practices

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