AquaCuisine, a California-based value-added seafood company with nearly $5 million in sales, won the retail category with a shelf-stable ready meal idea it calls fairly revolutionary. Salmon Mediterranean is a 24oz (660g) pack containing 14 oz of cooked salmon filet, a sauce containing tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, lemon, capers, garlic and red wind, and 10oz (284g) of cooked pasta.

“For the seafood business in America, it’s a revolutionary concept,” says the company’s Mark Goforth. “It’s the first branded refrigerated seafood entrée that has shelf life, that is also all natural, without preservatives or additives.

Shelf life from the day of manufacture is 60 days, Mr. Goforth says. “We’re guaranteeing 30 days to the dock of the grocery store’s warehouse.”

The shelf-stable approach was borrowed from European seafood producers. Mr. Goforth says. “The challenge we face in the USA is greater geographic distances,” he says. “Therefore we have greater technological hurdles to leap to create shelf life while remaining all natural. We do that by cooking the product, and using the HACCP control measures, and by using some of the basics of cook-chill technology from the poultry and meat companies that we compete against.”

Now in its sixth year, the Symphony of Salmon contest highlights new, innovative retail, foodservice and gift / specialty products made from Alaska wild salmon.