For the fourth consecutive year, MacKnight Smoked Salmon is a finalist in the Seafood Prix d’Elite new products competition at this year’s European Seafood Exposition. Since 2008, the company has taken home the prize for either best new retail product, best new foodservice product or one of the special awards for health and nutrition, convenience, retail packaging, originality or new product line. The company has become so adept at winning new products competitions that it sat out the Seafood Excellence Awards at this year’s International Boston Seafood Show.
SeafoodSource caught up with Stephen Nicholson, MacKnight’s director of culinary innovations, three weeks before the European Seafood Exposition to find out about this year’s entry, Atlantic Salmon Infusions.
Forristall: Describe the product
Nicholson: This year we entered an Atlantic Salmon Infusions, which basically is from our UK company Highland Farms. It was inspired by a top chef here in the UK who asked whether or not we could put sauce in the center of salmon, so when cooking it would steam out so the flavor infuses through and penetrates the salmon. So we got to work and tried to develop that. The chef wanted it portion-controled like a filet mignon, and wanted the visual aspect of a center-of-the-plate protein that was cost-effective and cost-controllable. It took six months to develop and create naturally, without binding the edges, and to develop the machinery. We developed the machinery in Germany to produce the line.
What type of feedback are you receiving about the product?
It’s absolutely unique, and there has already been major interest from wholesalers in the UK. We launched at the International Food Expo in March, and the response was absolutely phenomenal. The infusion comes in four sauce ranges within the product range, each inspired by location of smokehouses and companies. There is an English theme, a Scottish theme, a Southern Sticky Bar-be-Que for our American companies and an Oriental-style Sweet Chile Infused.
What’s the benefit of winning Seafood Prix d’Elite compared to the Seafood Excellence Awards?
European companies really use Brussels as a platform — there’s prestige and oomph if you’re lucky enough to win. From a sales point of view, winning in Europe you get immediate direct sales. In the U.S. [with the Seafood Excellence Awards], you get lots of publicity and it’s great to win. But you still have to go knocking on doors.
We go up against huge companies like Bumble Bee and Icelandic Group. To get up there is really creating a lot of growth within our company, which is sometimes quite a cliché to say but the publicity is doing a world of good for our company. We’re fresh and young, but we’ve got big ideas.
If you win Prix d’Elite again this year, how will you respond?
We’ve won the past three years, and it’s like companies are now looking up to us and asking how do you keep on doing it. I’m going to say humbly, “We did it again!” I mean, we put in a lot of time and effort because we like to be pioneers. When you get huge groups looking at your company, it sort of gives you a lot of pride. We’re in the business of selling our fish and building our company and building our brands. If we were, God willing, able to win again, it’s another push to say we’re on the right track to continue to go onwards and upwards.
Our aspiration is the meat industry. Some people ask, “Why concentrate on meat?” We met a pioneer who’s been in the business for 30 years, and he said to us, “Look to the meat industry and that’s where the fish industry will be in five years.” If the industry as a whole looks to the meat industry that could be sooner. It’s a very, very creative and innovative industry. Brainstorming, coming up with items, creating it in a test kitchen and getting it into market consistently is where we excel and where we’ve found a little nook in the market.
