According to producer, seafood educator, social media influencer, and Emmy Award-winning host Michael-Ann Rowe, in-store and online seafood demonstrations showcasing how easy seafood is to prepare should be a key component of sectorwide plans to grow seafood sales.
Rowe has built a multi-decade career around promoting Canadian and American seafood in a fun yet informational fashion, and one of her many recent ventures has been hosting her “Fishionista” social media show, in which she aims to showcase how tasty seafood meals can be prepared with minimal ingredients in 10 minutes or less.
About a year ago, the Fulton Fish Market Cooperative (FFMC) and Chefs Warehouse sponsored Fishionista’s pilot series across YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. The six-episode series featured such products as Nova Scotia Seafood’s halibut, Amar Seafood’s wolffish, and Riverence’s trout products.
“The pilot confirmed what I've believed all along: Consumers want seafood; they just need the confidence to cook it,” Rowe said. "The feedback was immediate. I heard from people asking where they could buy the featured products, and just as importantly, they told me the videos made seafood feel easy and approachable to prepare at home.”
That latter feedback, according to Rowe, represents the crux point of most consumers’ hesitation with cooking seafood.
“Consumers still find it intimidating to buy and prepare seafood. Seafood suppliers have incredible products but often struggle to communicate directly with consumers in an engaging way. I can help bridge the gap,” Rowe said, explaining that Fishionista helps suppliers by creating recipe-driven content for social media that showcases their products in a way that’s approachable, visually appealing, and easy to recreate at home.
Though people are often intimidated by cooking seafood, Rowe said several factors make it the perfect option for busy people looking for a quick, nutritious, and tasty meal.
“We are not driving that home enough – how fast seafood cooks,” Rowe said.
Kimberly Forsyth, the executive director of market development for the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, which regularly partners with Rowe, agreed with that sentiment.
“For many people, seafood can seem intimidating to buy or prepare at home. When people see a recipe demonstrated step by step, it helps take some of that mystery away. It shows that seafood can be simple, approachable, and something they can confidently prepare in their own kitchen,” she said.
Initiatives on which the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture has partnered with Rowe include a Fishionista episode featuring Nova Scotia-caught halibut, a demonstration at the Canadian Oyster Festival, and seafood promotion activities at Seafood Expo North America.
“Opportunities like these help introduce more people to Nova Scotia seafood and showcase the quality and variety of products our industry has to offer,” Forsyth said.
As a Seafood Nutrition Partnership (SNP) ambassador, Rowe has also headlined such demonstrations as highlighting chipotle-rubbed salmon skewers at grocery stores in the Midwest region of the U.S.
“All these people came over and bought pounds of salmon, and I ran out of rub,” she said.
These types of efforts sponsored by retailers, suppliers, and other stakeholders can resonate with consumers in myriad ways, such as, for instance, educating parents that kids going back to school need seafood as a nutritious source of energy, Rowe suggested.
Other possible use cases include targeting the increasing number of GLP-1 users, as seafood is a lean protein often recommended as part of a complementary diet, and consumers looking for ways to improve their gut and brain health.
Looking to the future, Rowe said the industry should think bigger. She posited that in addition to in-store and online video content, the U.S. seafood industry needs to invest in national commercial campaigns.
“When was the last time you saw a seafood commercial attached to the World Cup or Super Bowl? Sports and seafood belong together,” she said.
