Alaska salmon tent sales and cooking demonstrations are a few of the ways that U.S. grocers are stepping up Memorial Day seafood sales.
Coinciding with the start of the Copper River salmon season, Highland Park, Ill.-based Sunset Foods is holding its annual “Whole Copper River Sockeye Salmon Tent Sale” on 23 May. “We know everyone is eating hamburgers and hot dogs, so we promote it as something different for Memorial Day weekend,” said Dan Humphrey, meat and seafood director for the five-store chain.
Sunset brings in 60 or more cases for the tent sale, and staff fillets the whole salmon for customers, if they prefer.
The challenge with this year’s sale is the early Memorial Day weekend – around a week after fishing started in Alaska. “Supply is tighter than normal this year, and I’m up against giant buyers like Costco and Whole Foods,” Humphrey said. “I’m calling several different suppliers to cover it.”
Sunset is pricing the whole sockeye at USD 20 (EUR 17.96) a pound, after buying it for between USD 14.50 (EUR 13.03) and USD 18 (EUR 16.17) a pound wholesale. “At this point, it’s not a price issue. It’s something we have advertised for the past few weeks, and people have been calling for months now asking if we are still going to run the sale.”
Another attention-grabbing promotion will be held at Rouses Supermarkets’ Louisiana stores. From 22 May through 24 May, the 45-store Thibodaux, La.-based chain is offering several specials on local seafood in season, particularly Louisiana shrimp, which started 18 May. Outside one of Rouses’ Thibodaux stores, staff will be boiling shrimp for customers. Inside the store, Jarvis Green, a seafood consultant to retailers and processors and former defensive lineman for The New England Patriots, will be sampling Louisiana shrimp and taking photos with customers.
At one store, live crawfish will be available for 99 cents a pound from Rouses’ truck in the parking lot on 23 May.
Rouses is featuring a boiled seafood package throughout the weekend in its Louisiana stores that consists of five pounds of crawfish, four boiled crabs, two pounds of 9/12s boiled shrimp, along with corn and potatoes, for USD 39.99 (EUR 35.92).
Other specials include raw Louisiana shrimp 9/12s for USD 6.99 (EUR 6.28) per pound, local frog legs for USD 12.99 (EUR 11.67) pound, local soft shell crabs for USD 5.99 (USD 5.38), and local catfish.
