Secrets of the Seafood Excellence Global award winners

Not long after they climbed onto the stage at Seafood Expo Global in Brussels on Tuesday, 26 April and hoisted their crystal trophies as the grand prize winners of the 2016 Seafood Excellence Global Awards, Franck Paque of Freshpack and Christian Sommer of Kagerer & Co. spoke with SeafoodSource about the secrets to their success.

Freshpack was founded in 1982 as a frozen products trader, but has since expanded into white shrimp fishing in Madagascar (it has an eight-vessel fleet) and now produces a wide variety of value-added products. The company has about 60 employees and about EUR 80 million (USD 92.1 million) in annual turnover.

Paque, the directeur general of Saint Martin lés Boulogne, France-based Freshpack, accepted the grand prize for best hotel/restaurant/catering product for its raw frozen king crab meat.

Paque explained that the product, which is shelled using a high-pressure wash and then vacuum-sealed whole, was designed especially for chefs. Judges said the product offered restaurant operators and chefs convenience and flexibility, and Paque agreed.

“It’s a completely new process and of course very useful for the chef. Before, chefs needed lots of time to cut the shell of the crustacean. Now they can quickly get the meat, incorporate the product and cook it as they wish,” Paque said. “Not to mention the quality is much better and the flavor is kept better, so this innovation is something fantastic for them.”

Paque said the big win would help raise Freshpack’s global profile.

“This will bring us a lot of attention and I think more companies will find us now,” Paque said. “We are very excited to win this award.”

The other award winner, Kagerer & Co., is based in Munich, Germany and has about 70 employees. It collected the Seafood Excellence Award for best retail product for its quick ‘n easy dim sum product, which it launched in November 2015.

Kagerer & Co. was founded in 1975 and specializes in importing Asian food to Europe. Christian Sommer, the company’s Asia purchasing director, said it only recently moved into developing its own proprietary retail products.

“We were supplying a lot of Japanese restaurants and found our way into the sushi business. We developed strong connections to many suppliers in Asia and the U.S. also. Slowly, the world of ethnic food opened up for us, and we became a strong supplier for foodservice in terms of Japanese products and sushi items in Germany and Europe-wide,” Sommer said. “Step by step, starting about seven years ago, we tried to open up the world of dim-sum for foodservice.”

But Kagerer & Co. saw an opportunity in developing its own Asian-themed products, Sommer said.

“We always thought might be a lot of opportunity in the retail product market, but what we were seeing was just a lot of products transplanted from Asia to Europe, but they didn’t really fit the market,” he said. “That led to development of a really successful range, and hopefully more to come.”

The winning product is a set of two pair of shrimp dumplings and one pair of vegetarian dumplings that can be fried or microwaved at home. They are currently being sold in specialty and Asian-focused supermarkets, Sommer said.

“But we’re hoping for more supply, and I’m sure [winning] this [award] will help,” he said.

Sommer said the company’s major secret, if it can be called that, is its employees’ love of eating.

“We often travel in Asia and we find ourselves eating out all the time, seeking out good food and new things,” he said. “It’s something we enjoy very much and which we are very enthusiastic about, and that allows us to experience the range of what is out there and helps us generate ideas.”

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