Hsiang-Hsiu Hung, the manager of Tainan, Taiwan-based seafood company Fisherman’s Hometown International, is trying to spread the word to Western markets about a fish that is little known outside of Asia: milkfish.
Milkfish gets its name from the whitish color of its scales, and is a popular cuisine staple in Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other Asian countries.
Though the fish might be little known in Western markets, to Hung, it is a family tradition.
“My grandpa was a fisher for 50 years, my parents then manufactured milkfish for 20 years, and now me and my generation have been at it for another 20 years – about 100 years of my family line has been involved with milkfish,” he told SeafoodSource at the 2025 Seafood Expo North America, which ran from 16 to 18 March in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Cracking the North American market has been no easy feat for Fisherman’s Hometown International, but Hung credits the time he spent studying at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., as pivotal to understanding what Western consumers like when shopping for fish.
“If you are Asian, you know what milkfish is, but if you are not, you probably don’t. Some of my friends at school were from all over the U.S. and Europe,” he said. “Every time I wanted to sell a product, I would ask my friends if they knew the fish I was talking about. They often didn’t know. But, they would tell me the type of fish they like to buy and in what form, which helped inform me on how to get the right target audience.”
With that experience to draw on, Hung and Fisherman’s Hometown attended SENA for the first time this year, touting its farmed milkfish products in several forms, including fish cakes, fish sticks, soups, and more.
“The flavor profile it has is really suitable for fish cakes and fish sticks,” Hung said.
The company sells its products domestically, as well as to Australia and Japan. It has three Taiwan-based manufacturing facilities – one dedicated to fresh fish, one solely dedicated to fish cake manufacturing, and one to soups and other value-added products. The firm has 200 employees working across the facilities, which can produce up to 10,000 kilograms of fish per day.
In order to break through in the U.S., the firm is first trying to target Asian markets in the country such as 99 Ranch and H-Mart – a strategy similar firms are trying to adopt. However, Hung envisions milkfish working its way into larger retailers if it gets in front of enough customers.
“I hope, at some point, everyone can become familiar with milkfish, and it can have the same market recognition as tilapia, for example,” he said.
Milkfish is the main product Fisherman’s Hometown sells, but it also offers shrimp, carp, mullet, and tilapia, among other species.
