Hi, Blue Harvest friends. We often get asked what it is that we do, how do we add value? A great way to answer this would be to share the outcomes of a recent workshop we hosted for a new client of ours. You’ll see the challenges we faced, the solutions we came up with, and results we achieved. If you have any questions, comments, or inquiries, please feel free to get in touch.
The challenge
Tropical Finfish is an aquaculture company managed and run by a team with sound technical and practical fish culture experience. However, the company admits that it doesn’t yet know enough about the Australian domestic seafood market, buyer preferences and product specification requirements. The company produces Queensland Giant Grouper at trial levels and is now in the early stages of commercialisation. Their next step is to set production direction with the market firmly in mind.
The question became, “how can the team at Blue Harvest help Tropical Finfish make sense of the product specifications required for market access so that they can tailor their grouper production planning accordingly?”
The solution
Blue Harvest set up a daylong workshop in Sydney where we helped the Tropical Finfish team recognise their target market components and learn market solutions around the Queensland Giant Grouper.
We wanted to give the team a much better understanding of market expectations through meeting the wholesalers, retailers and chefs that
are interested in using grouper. This kind of direct feedback on how the product will be received and handled in its various forms would give the Tropical Finfish team relevant context and concrete market examples.
The result
Richard Knuckey and the rest of the Tropical Finfish team started the day at the Sydney Fish Market with Blue Harvest’s Scott Walter and Sue Devlin. A tour of the major wholesalers and retailers in the market gave them the opportunity to meet some of the most prominent seafood handlers in the country, observe the other products on sale and get some personal feedback from the wholesalers on market demand for grouper products.
From there, they visited JOTO Fresh Fish, which is known as Sydney’s premier seafood supplier, delivering to over 200 restaurants, wholesalers and retailers. JOTO’s Wayne Hulme works closely with chefs from some of Sydney’s premium restaurants to ensure that they receive the highest quality seafood with the exact specifications they need. Wayne had invited well-known Sydney-based chef Massimo Mele, a loyal customer of JOTO, and owner of La Scala on Jersey, to meet with those at the workshop. Massimo gave a comprehensive product analysis on the grouper so that the Tropical Finfish team could see the advantages and drawbacks from a chef’s perspective. Wayne also provided valuable feedback from a processors perspective.
Together, the group looked at the fillet recovery from three fish grades; 1kg, 2kg and 3kg fish. Massimo talked about the size he would look for when portioning fish for his restaurant. He explained that portion size requirements differ between restaurants depending on the type of establishment. “Places that tend to cater for large numbers and push through multiple sittings per meal session prefer thinner fish fillets because they are faster to cook, whereas higher end venues will prefer thicker portions”. They looked at what fish size would yield the best fillet recovery and return for the customer, while keeping in mind production costs.
Up until this point, the strategy by Tropical Finfish has been to produce 600 – 1.5kg fish. After chef, processor and producer worked together, they determined that a 3 – 3.3kg fish would give the best fillet portion return, and be the most marketable and economically viable product. These were some very enlightening results.
The workshop ended with a tour of some of Sydney’s live fish wholesalers so that the Tropical Finfish team could better understand the requirements of these operations and facilities.
Ultimately, the day was a great success, and everyone was happy to see the encouraging benefits of transparency and collaboration between the producer, the marketer and the market.
