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Wild Alaskan Seafood News
Copper salmon fetching a gold price
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
King fillets are topping out at nearly $37 a pound
By HSIAO-CHING CHOU
P-I FOOD EDITOR
(Editor's Note: This story has been altered. The original version of this story misstated the increase in price paid to fishermen for Copper River salmon this year over last.)
It'll take a king's ransom to liberate a piece of the most famous king salmon in the land.
Copper River king salmon
Zoom Paul Joseph Brown / P-I
Alaska Airlines cargo manager Matt Yerbic passes a Copper River king salmon to Tom Sunderland of Ocean Beauty Seafoods.
Consumers have always been willing to pay a premium for Copper River king salmon from Alaska. But with first-of-the-season prices for king fillets fetching as much as $36.99 per pound -- retail -- some sellers worry that customers may abstain from the fish known for its silky texture and rich flavor.
The 2006 Copper River salmon season, which opened Monday, may set the record for the highest prices in the fish's illustrious history.
Usually, retailers and restaurants celebrate the salmon with promotions, sending out notices before the arrival of the fish and even competing to see who can bring back the first king. This year, there was nary a promotional peep after projections for the season promised a low catch and increased demand, which would jack up the prices.
For the first day, fishermen received up to $7 per pound for whole king salmon and around $4 for sockeye. The price paid to fishermen in 2005 was $5.90 for kings and $3.90 for sockeyes.
Salmon prices
Wholesalers, in turn, passed on the higher cost to their clients, who have had to cough up between $17 to $20 per pound for whole king salmon. After retailers and restaurants butcher the fish into fillets and steaks, the cost to the consumer has reached $28 to $37 per pound for Copper River kings. In 2005, the average cost of the king fillets was around $25.
Logina Parente, director of seafood operations at MJ Meats and Seafood, said that in her 20 years in the business, she has never seen a year like this.
"It's frustrating," Parente said, "but the cost is up across the board."
She explained that air freight fees have gone up 15 to 20 cents per pound. Rising fuel costs have caused airlines to cut the number of their flights and to reduce the cargo space per flight available to ship fish from Alaska and across the country.
"But people still want the fish," Parente said. "They still appreciate a high-end wild salmon."
Factors that contributed to the low initial catch include icy waters and newly enacted restrictions that limit the number of openings in certain fishing areas. The demand has increased in part because the Oregon and California salmon fisheries have been shut down this season for conservation reasons.
There has been resistance among buyers, though.
Some Seattle businesses, including Mutual Fish, Uwajimaya and The Oceanaire Seafood Room, have chosen to wait a day or two in hopes prices will drop.
"I thought last year was expensive," said Harry Yoshimura, who owns Mutual Fish. "Copper has been expensive for the past five years, and the price keeps going up."
Yoshimura, who believes many of his customers will take a pass on buying Copper River salmon, added that prices probably won't drop much, if at all.
"They've marketed this fish to the point where there's a huge demand," he said. "It's all over the country and people gotta have it. Some have to have it at any cost."
Metropolitan Market at Admiral pre-sold most of the first delivery of salmon. By Tuesday afternoon, there were customers waiting in front of the seafood counter eager to pick up their pieces of fish -- at $29.99 per pound for kings and $21.99 per pound for sockeyes.
Diners have been calling Ray's Boathouse since early last week asking for the fish. While selling Copper River salmon doesn't yield the profits the restaurant typically expects from an entrée, the fish will remain on the menu for as long as it's available.
"Copper River salmon sets the standard for the entire salmon season," said Charles Ramseyer, executive chef of Ray's Boathouse.
A dinner portion of Copper River king fillet costs $38 at Ray's Boathouse. Customers can order sockeye salmon in the upstairs cafe for $21.99.
Lane Hoss, of Anthony's Restaurants, offered this analogy: "There's a price people will pay for Leonetti cabernet sauvignon and there's a price people will pay for other Washington cabs."
Copper River salmon is a Leonetti.
At Anthony's, a dinner entrée of Copper River king salmon runs $38.95, with salad or chowder. Sockeye is $34.95.
Whether the fish is worth the hype is up for debate. No one denies that it is a high-quality fish that tastes delicious.
Nation's capital is climbing the fish ladder
RESTAURANTS: Moneyed D.C. diners now seek out wild Alaska salmon.
By LIZ RUSKIN
Anchorage Daily News
Published: May 21, 2006
Last Modified: May 21, 2006 at 04:51 AM
WASHINGTON -- When dining in Lower 48 restaurants, I used to consider it my civic duty as an Alaskan to inquire about the provenance of the salmon and to display a subtle wince if the server responded with words I knew to be synonyms of "farmed."
I did this when I first moved to Washington five years ago, but I soon dropped it.
This isn't Seattle. It's not the West Coast. Waiters here would get a panicked look. The question bewildered them. Sensing a trap but sill aiming to please, they'd glance at the corners of the ceiling and guess.
"It's ... uh, wild?"
Too embarrassing. I stopped asking.
Salmon, I noticed, was everywhere in this city, on every restaurant menu. My non-Alaskan friends bought plastic-wrapped fillets at the supermarket. But no one cared if it was farmed or wild or even knew of those categories. Farmed salmon? They'd giggle. They pictured it growing in the fields like corn in Iowa.
Sure, each May, a few restaurants catering to fat-walleted lobbyists trumpeted the arrival of Copper River kings. The foodies -- expert eaters who buy Kashmiri saffron and black truffles from Umbria -- knew all about the Copper River reds. But most Washingtonians I met were clueless about salmon, even though they ate it regularly.
All those years of Alaska salmon marketing campaigns, it seemed, hadn't penetrated this portion of the mid-Atlantic. Salmon was salmon.
And then, maybe a year ago, all that changed.
Was it the run of news stories about the health benefits of wild salmon? The unappetizing reports of fish farm infections? Maybe an Alaska salmon ad finally broke through the clutter.
I don't know, but when I go to local restaurants these days, diners at tables other than mine make the ugly face when told the salmon is "fresh Atlantic." I hear shoppers at the Safeway seafood case telling their companions that farmed salmon is icky. More and more menus declare that their salmon is wild and Alaskan.
Chefs at several Washington restaurants say customers are getting salmon smart, particularly about Copper River reds, the most heavily marketed variety.
"We've had people asking for it for the past two weeks," said Jeff Eng, executive chef at Clyde's of Georgetown, a saloon-style eatery that has been a fixture in that high-end neighborhood since 1963.
So, when is he going to start serving it?
"That depends on when the price comes down," he said.
At the Oceanaire Seafood Room, a few blocks from the White House, chef Rob Klink was waiting to get his hands on the Copper reds.
"It's the most anticipated salmon fishery of the year," Klink said.
The earliest fish, he said, seem to get eaten up by the West Coast. He usually doesn't see Copper River salmon until the second opener.
He pays a premium for them, and so do his customers. He sells a Copper River entree for $40 to $45, well above his average entree price of $28.
"Whatever we bring in, we'll sell out in a day," he said. "Everybody knows it's top-notch salmon. Each year demand goes up."
And at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.? Do President and Mrs. Bush plan to serve Copper River salmon this year? Any Alaska salmon at all?
The White House that abhors leaks is keeping mum on this.
"The White house chef is familiar with the salmon. However, we do not release any menus until the day the guests have their dinner," said Tarah Donoghue, a spokeswoman for first lady Laura Bush.
Better ratios, bigger salmon runs in store for '05
By Margaret Bauman
Alaska Journal of Commerce
With nowhere to go but up, the 2005 Alaska salmon season should be a lucrative one, thanks to changes in the ratio of high- to low-value harvest and improved prices, says seafood industry analyst Chris McDowell.
An improved ratio of high- to low-value salmon harvests in recent years and a predicted large run of salmon in 2005 have those in the industry approaching this year's fishing season with more optimism.
In recent years, there has been a 70-30 split between high- and low-value harvests, with lower-value pink and chum salmon representing the bulk of the catch, McDowell said. In 2004, however, species composition was split 60-40, with 40 percent of the harvest tonnage represented by higher-value sockeye, king and silver salmon, he said.
Pre-season projections from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game call for a run of 180 million salmon of all species. That compares with a 20-year average of 156 million salmon, putting the 2005 season in the top 10 historically, McDowell said.
All top-10 harvests for the last 100 years have occurred within the last decade, said McDowell, who is also the project manager for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute's Salmon Market Information Service.
"Part of what we are seeing is a rebound of sockeye stocks, which account for two-thirds of the total salmon value," McDowell said. The 2004 statewide harvest of 44 million sockeye, worth approximately $250 million, ranks as the eighth largest sockeye harvest on record, he said.
The sockeye harvest bottomed out in 2002, with a value of $162 million, then rose to a value of $209 million in 2003, he said. "Frankly, we had nowhere to go but up after the 2002 season," McDowell said.
Fluctuation of the Alaska salmon runs has a marginal effect on total world supply, he said. While Alaska's contribution is significant, the state is not a major supplier of salmon, producing 10 percent to 12 percent of the total world supply.
"Looking at it from the big picture, we are already at record harvest levels," McDowell said. "We're not necessarily going to catch more salmon. We can't realistically expect to catch more, but the world supply is continuing to grow. So wild Alaska salmon is becoming more rare, not because of scarcity, but because of the volume of farmed fish."
Marketing efforts by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and others have helped to distinguish the state's product from farmed salmon, he said. "The domestic market and interest from Europe have improved substantially from even a year or two ago, as a result of differentiating wild salmon from farmed fish."
The industry is also seeing slow, but steady growth in salmon fillet production, the preferred domestic product, plus salmon burgers and salmon nuggets, he said. Processors are also freezing Alaska salmon here and reprocessing it overseas, primarily in China, he said.
In the canned salmon market, one of the state's two primary product forms, things are looking up as well. Canned pink salmon is still in oversupply, but there are signs of improvement, he said.
There has also been significant growth in U.S. markets for higher-value salmon. Prices paid to fishermen for this winter's king salmon averaged more than $7 a pound in the Southeast Alaska troll fishery, compared with $4.65 a pound for Copper River kings last year.
In all, processors sold 182 million pounds of headed and gutted frozen salmon in calendar year 2004, bringing in $223 million, he said. The aggregate price was about $1.22 a pound, compared with $1.01 a pound in 2002, and 99 cents a pound in 2003.
The biggest gain for 2004 was in fresh headed and gutted salmon of all species. "We sold $60 million in fresh headed and gutted fish in 2004, compared with values of $24 million in 2001, $20 million in 2002 and $33 million in 2003," he said. The average for the last three years was $26 million.
Processors sold 6.5 million pounds of frozen fillets of salmon for a total of $11.5 million in 2004, at an average price of $1.79 a pound. Fresh fillets, 897,000 pounds in all, were worth $1.8 million.
Salmon roe went for an average of $5.19 a pound in 2004, for a total of 18.7 million pounds that brought processors $96 million. That price was up from an average price of $4.47 a pound in 2003 on a harvest of 19.4 million pounds worth a total of $86.9 million, he said. Roe values peaked in 1999 and 2000. The price decline has now leveled off.
For pink and chum salmon, the overall strategy is to take this relatively low-value fish and convert it into an attractive product form, shooting for the demographic that values the quality of Alaska salmon and is willing to pay for it, McDowell said.
"For pinks, in particular, anything we can do with shifting product form from traditional canned pink to other products will reduce chronic oversupply in the canned market," he said.
Margaret Bauman.
Halibut in season: Fresh fish is low in fat and delicious
'Tis the season for fresh halibut. But don't let the price put you off: You can get three to four servings from a pound, which means that for the family, a home-cooked halibut dinner can cost less than a fast-food meal.
Too often overshadowed by pink-colored salmon, fresh halibut's succulent white meat is low in fat and has a sweet, mild flavor that lends itself to many ways of cooking.
Halibut is abundant in the waters of the North Pacific. It is a member of the flatfish family, with both eyes on the upper side of its body. The fish burrows beneath the sea floor to avoid detection by prey and predators.
"Halibut season starts now and runs to mid-November,
At the beginning of the season, fresh Pacific fillets run $14 to $16 per pound. During the season, the price comes down to $12 or $13 per pound. "It's the cost of shipping fresh salmon," Mr. Chipps says of the price difference.
Pacific halibut can weigh up to 500 to 700 pounds and grow to more than nine feet long. Most of the fish range between 50 and 100 pounds. Young halibut weigh between 2 and 10 pounds.
The icy waters surrounding Alaska's 34,000-mile coastline host an abundant and healthy seafood stock. In January, the International Pacific Halibut Commission voted to open the fishing season two weeks early. Alaskan halibut are caught with longlines, meaning that each fish is caught individually so that the fish are not bruised during harvesting. To maintain freshness and quality, the halibut are shipped from Anchorage via commercial jets to Eastern U.S. destinations within 24 hours of harvest. The annual catch of halibut is regulated by the commission.
Fish, including halibut, are low in fat and sodium, and are excellent sources of protein. Fatty fish have more omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to help prevent cardiovascular disease and heart attacks.
Locally, fresh halibut is sold primarily as fillets, but can be cut into steaks, which still have bones and are great for grilling.
The fish is easy to cook on the grill or stovetop, or in the oven. It is often served with a variety of sauces.
Italian-style Halibut with Tomatoes and White Beans is broiled halibut served atop a ragout of tomatoes and great Northern beans. It is seasoned with garlic and basil for a delicious flavor. It cooks quickly.
Halibut also can be baked. In Baked Halibut with Avocado Cream Sauce, the fish is coated with flour and egg, browned, and baked. With Halibut en Papillote, the halibut nestles with artichoke hearts, peppers, and tomatoes in parchment paper packets and is baked.
Halibut steaks may be easier to grill than fillets on a conventional grill (oil the grates well). The excellent texture of halibut holds together nicely, making it possible to flip the pieces without breaking them. Steve Raichlen in Raichlen's Indoor! Grilling uses a contact grill for cooking halibut fillets; you simply close the lid and you don't have to use a spatula for turning the fish.
Halibut fillets should glisten with no signs of browning or gaping, and they should smell like seawater. They should have no strong fishy or ammonialike smell.
(But the truth is that most consumers never get close enough to the raw fish to get a whiff: If there's not a glass partition between the seafood case and the shopper, there's a plastic packaging. In rare cases, customers are able to smell the fish before buying.)
When storing seafood, keep it very cold. After buying, store the fish as soon as possible on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, which is the coolest area.
When cooking halibut, measure the thickness at its thickest point. Cook 10 minutes for each inch of thickness. It should flake easily with a fork when cooked thoroughly; and it should be white throughout, not translucent.
Recommended herbs are dill, chives, and tarragon. Other seasonings that pair well with halibut are paprika, grated ginger root, garlic, and lemon pepper.
Basting agents for halibut include orange juice, lemon and lime juices, white wine, and teriyaki. Because of the tenderness of halibut, it is not recommended to marinate more than 20 minutes.
Other additions might include slivered almonds, macadamia nuts, lemon wedges, chopped parsley or chives, and mango or papaya chutney.
As for the history of this fish, halibut gets its name from "haly-butte" in Middle English, which meant the fish was only to be eaten on holy days.
Laura Fleming, spokesman for Alaska Seafood, notes that the Pacific halibut is a different and larger species than Atlantic halibut, which is not found in as much quantity commercially.
Fresh or frozen, fillets or steaks, this spring try one of these Pacific halibut recipes.
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