Style of Dressing

Species

Classifications, and Approximate Standards as used on the Boston Fish Pier (Continued)

Trade Usage and New England Fish Exchange Rules

Market
Classification

Approximate Weight

OPA Regulations
Style of Dressing

Approximate Weight

5 - 10 "

300 - 350 per gal. 60 lbs. per bu.

FROZEN FISH BELONGS IN YOUR LOCKER PLANT/

By L. S. Christey*

My sincere thanks, Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen for letting me come here today to sell you some fish.

As representatives of the National Frozen Food Locker Association, yours is a rosy future. I know how your industry grew in the years immediately preceding the war--continued to grow during the war as fast as priorities would permit--and, undoubtedly, will grow at a much increased pace when wartime restrictions are removed. Most of you have waiting lists now. Like many other progressive industries, you spend a lot of thought and money apologizing for wartime limitations on the service you can render--improving that service where you can, and laying a sound foundation for postwar expansion.

I have noted in your trade journals the sound advice that you must look forward to the day when locker facilities equal demand and you must sell occupancy. The merchandising policies you adopt now are extremely important in establishing a reputation of service and economy. One day that reputation will be as important and valuable as cash in the bank.

As I see it, you must convince your customers that the advantages of locker rental out-weigh the convenience of store-shopping. Three of your principal sales arguments are: ECONOMY QUALITY VARIETY

Frozen packaged fish belong in your locker plant: because they will make you money while they save it for your customer; because they will give your customers fish with the flavor and goodness intact; and because they will add substantial variety to your offerings.

A. Economy--One of the chief economies offered by a locker plant is taking seasonal crops at the time of greatest abundance and consequent low price. Many of our fishery crops are as seasonal as agricultural ones and in normal times subject to as violent price fluctuations. The Fish and Wildlife Service publishes daily Market News reports from five of the principal market areas: Chicago, Boston, New York, New Orleans, and Seattle. Each carries summaries of the other four. They are distributed free to interested parties. In addition, we have available published articles which list the season of abundance for various fishery products. The several trade organizations and any reputable wholesaler will offer sound advice as to when to buy what fish.

All too often, we have heard complaints of fish costing too much money. Where fish are handled in a perishable form with consequent high ratio of loss; where they are handled in small lots with a high overhead--such high prices do result. But it is possible for you to buy and sell sizable lots of frozen packaged fish at a price which will please your customer while yielding a fair return to yourself. Good evidence of this fact is found in the popularity of fish with hotels and restaurants. It is not only point free--it makes them money.

B. Quality--I think it was Dorothy Parker who said, "Fish are like house guests--after three days, they both stink." She wasn't talking about frozen fish. I don't believe it is necessary to describe to you people the superiority of a quality frozen product over a perishable one that has been held allegedly "fresh" too long. I do want to emphasize that it is as true of fish as of corn on the cob, or strawberries.

One of the largest New England producers told me he wished I would strike the word "stink" from my vocabulary. Perhaps that would be wise, but it wouldn't alter the fact that stale fish do--stink, nor the fact that fresh and fresh-frozen fish do not. As you know, in the early days, freezing was often the last resort when it became apparent the product could not be moved fresh and after the merchandise had already deteriorated. Freezing will check but cannot undo damage. There was, then, a prejudice on the part of many onsumers against frozen products. The elimination of those mistakes through better freezing methods and freezing good merchandise is teaching the consumer to expect better than average rather than worse than average quality from frozen products. The phenomenal growth of your industry proves this conclusively.

Many of you are from the Midwest. The heaviest concentration of your industry is there. It is precisely there that the marketing of frozen fish represents the greatest advantage. Chief, Market Development Section.

1/Address before the National Frozen Food Locker Association, September 25, 1944.

Today

Five hundred miles is about the practical limit for shipments of most fresh fish. with transportation less predictable and subject to unusual delays, one cannot rely even on that distance. True, retailers can buy frozen fish and hope they sell it before it spoils but this does not compare with the quality you can offer in fish kept frozen until the customer takes it home.

Some

Reliable producers can be depended on to supply you with quality merchandise. bad mistakes were made during the first years of the war when the market was strong enough to absorb even poor merchandise. The reliable firms regret those mistakes and are determined not to duplicate them. They are keenly interested in your industry as a large potential market and will cater to it. They have already done much and have extensive postwar plans for doing more to insure quality. I look forward to shorter fishing trips, better refrigeration at sea, faster unloading, better processing, better packaging, and improved freezing. I feel confident you will be able to offer your customer a convenient and attractive package of pure fish ready to cook and with the fresh tang of the sea intact.

C. Variety--Not the least advantage to you, in including fishery products in your merchandising plans, is the variety it offers. People can get tired of beef--or do you remember the days before red points--they can even get tired of all the meats. I believe that it is self evident that it is sound salesmanship for you to offer your patrons as wide a choice of commodities as possible. First, because the more variety in the locker, the more the patron depends on the locker and less on the store. Second, because, after all, you are selling space.

Fishery products not only offer a change from meat, they offer a wide variety in themselves. Too often fish sales are limited to a few varieties produced locally. Yet our records list over 160 species taken commercially. The list in the June issue of one of your own trade magazines of fish which had been frozen occupied almost a column. What eating there is to be found in the list! The shellfish: Shrimp, tangy and succulent and a score of ways to prepare it, ranging from the easily prepared and always popular cocktail to such entrees as French fried or creamed-on-toast. Oysters are frozen commercially at the height of their goodness and in that form always "R" in season. Frozen crabmeat is a staple item-but try frozen Dungeness crabs cracked and eaten from the shell, or the soft-shell crab from Chesapeake Bay. Someone in your area will have enjoyed the former in the West, or the latter in the East, and if he doesn't make some converts, I miss my guess. Individually wrapped steaks of salmon and halibut from the Northwest or swordfish which may come from either California or Long Island are sure to please. New England lobster is practical and delicious though not inexpensive. The Great Lakes will contribute such delicacies as lake trout and whitefish and such staples as pike and perch. But the bulk of the sales will probably be in fillets--boneless tenderloins with no waste--parchment wrapped in convenient quantities and then packed in cartons to meet the needs of you and your customers. From the cold waters of the Atlantic come cod, haddock, pollock, perch, whiting, mackerel, sole, croaker, and sea trout. From the South Atlantic and Gulf come mullet, red snapper, grouper, and pompano, the aristocrat of fish. The Pacific yields the salmons and halibut, already mentioned, plus the fillets of the rapidly expanding trawl fishery. The list is long, the products are all excellent.

D. Practicability--It is altogether practical for your patrons to hold fish in their lockers regardless of whatever commodities they or their neighbors have in storage. The technologists of our Service have worked intensively with the problem and report there is no danger of a transfer of odors when fresh fish are adequately wrapped and properly frozen. There is, however, a risk I should warn against. Sportsmen have brought back a creel of fish that have been in the sun too long and put them in their unit to freeze at a temperature of plus five. That can have some unpleasant results. A locker plant operator should guard against this. Such patrons can be accommodated by insuring proper wrapping and by freezing the fish directly on the coils at low temperatures. Freezing fish requires care. Frozen fish can be safely stored.

E. Your Help Is Needed--I believe that merchandising fish in your locker plants will pay dividends. Right now, it will also be of real service to the war effort. As you know, freezer facilities throughout the Nation are jammed. The Army has said that it must have more space for meat and holiday poultry. To secure that space, the War Food Administration has had to issue an order (WFO-111-1) which, among other things, restricts the space frozen packaged fish can occupy in commercial freezers. To comply with the terms of that order,

several million pounds of fish should be withdrawn from storage immediately. By purchasing packaged frozen fish now, you will help insure that our boys receive adequate supplies of meat and that turkey dinner at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

F. We Will Help--In cooperation with the War Food Administration and producer organizations, we are inaugurating a campaign to move fish. I believe you will see evidences of this and find your customers in a fish buying mood. In addition, we stand ready to give any special assistance you may require. We have technologists who can reply to technical questions on fish storage. We have home economists who can supply information on fish cookery. We have recipe books. If your organization or any group within your organization wishes to attempt an active campaign, we would be pleased to cooperate and assure you of substantial support from the industry.

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THE DISTRIBUTION OF FISH BY FROZEN FOOD LOCKER PLANTS

By Leo Young*

In August 1944, the Fish and Wildlife Service established in the Division of Commercial Fisheries a new Market Development Section for the purpose of aiding the fishing industry to enlarge the number of distribution outlets and thereby increase the consumption of fishery products. One of the first acts of this Section was to survey the frozen food locker plant industry. Some of the findings follow:

Locker plants are becoming increasingly important in food distribution because of their freezing and storage facilities. They are in a strategic position to aid in balancing the Nation's food supply. Today, there are approximately 6,000 locker plants in this country. These plants have an average of more than 300 lockers each with a capacity of about 300 pounds of food per locker. The entire holding capacity of all plants is estimated to be greater than 600 million pounds, and a turn-over occurs about three times a year.

The growth of locker plants has been phenomenal. There has been a 350 percent increase in plants in the last six years, and a 30 percent gain in the average number of lockers in each plant. Increases are continuing in spite of priority limitations, and the rate is expected to accelerate when the restrictions are removed.

* Fishery Marketing Specialist.