What started as a leftover has become a prizewinner.?
Dish Hospitality’s Oriental Shrimp Nest was first created as a way to use up discarded pastry from another product.
“Unintentionally eco-friendly,” according to director Amandeep Singh, the product won the Best New Foodservice award yesterday at the 2012 Seafood Excellence Awards at the International Boston Seafood Show. Grieg Seafood Hjaltland UK Ltd. was the competition’s other winner, taking home the Best New Retail award for its WildWaters Gravadlax “Limoncello.”?
For Dish Hospitality, the win marked the second year in a row it has won the prize for Best New Foodservice product. Its 2012 winner, L’Essence Foods-branded Oriental Shrimp Nest, features black tiger shrimp, ginger, garlic, coriander and oyster sauce coated in shredded pastry.?
“It’s always nice to bring something beautiful to market,” said Vikas Seth, the company’s corporate execute chef.?Singh credits Dish’s wins to the ability of its team to not only come up with original food concepts, but also to execute them. The company employs 250 chefs across its restaurants and corporate kitchen who are always ready to take on the challenge of making innovative ideas a reality. He says it’s also important to keep the customer in mind at all times.?
“We think of ourselves as end users, as customers, what we would like to eat, what we would like to see on the shelves,” said Singh.?Retail product winner Grieg Seafood Hjaltland developed its WildWaters Gravadlax “Limoncello” — salmon cured in a marinade seasoned with dill, spices, juniper berries, lemon and limoncello — to bring something different to the smoked salmon market.?
“It was a very stable market. There wasn’t much innovation,” said Steven Leask, who handles sales and logistics for Grieg. Though limencello may seem an odd choice, he points out that the flavor is a classic one for fish.?“It’s that lemony flavor that really works well with the fish,” said Leask, who says the company constantly tests its new products to get the flavor just right.
“We’re never 100 percent satisfied with it. We want to make it as best as we possibly can.”?
The two winners were chosen from 10 finalists narrowed down from 80 entries. Judges included Butch Vidrine, senior manager of seafood for Sysco; Eric Caron, research and development chef for Uno’s Chicago Grill; and Tony Ruccio, director of seafood merchandising for King’s Super Markets.?
According to Mary Larkin, VP of seafood expositions for show producer Diversified Business Communications and publisher of SeaFood Business magazine and SeafoodSource.com, the judges praised the finalists in this year’s competition for being highly marketable with a number of retail items that also work for foodservice. Products were judged on eating experience, packaging, market potential, convenience, nutrition and originality.
