Alaska Seafood Newsbrief

Message from the Executive Director

Greetings-

It's exciting to report that Hard Rock Café has put wild Alaska Salmon on the menu! This is a fine example of the productive partnerships our marketing programs work to create, a collaboration that simultaneously opens up opportunities for Alaska's seafood industry and enables the restaurant to capitalize on the proven popularity of wild Alaska seafood.

This week ASMI launched an on-line training tool, Alaska Seafood U, intended to augment the training programs of foodservice operators and grocery and seafood retailers. If you are in the Alaska seafood business, and sell through foodservice or retail channels in the U.S., please examine this new resource we have created for your customers.

Soon we will know the full results of the Symphony of Seafood new products contest, but we can go ahead and send hearty congratulations to Randy and Edna Crawford of Boreal Fisheries for netting the Symphony of Seafood Seattle People's Choice Award for Ray's Wild Alaska Yukon Salmon Chowder!

The wind chill here in Alaska's Capital City may be 30 degrees below zero, but that hasn't stopped the Alaska State Legislature hitting the ground running for its shortened legislative session. During the session, more Alaskans than ever before will be seeing our television advertisements which will run during the months of February and March, at the same time those ads are generating 103 MILLION household impressions in the "Lower 48" states.

It's likely to be chilly in Boston during the International Boston Seafood Show, but we hope to melt off the chill with warm Alaskan hospitality at the ASMI and other Alaska seafood industry booths, as well as at the reception Go Wild Alaska Style!

See you over the next swell,

Ray Riutta

Hard Rock Café and Wild Alaska Sockeye Salmon

On the menu, amid images of famous guitars, leather costumes worn by rock divas and other memorabilia, selections at the Hard Rock Café will now offer wild Alaska sockeye salmon. The wild salmon, available to Hard Rock Café customers at 48 of their restaurants in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands, is offered as an entrée, and as a salad addition (one of two protein choices) and it is also part of a featured menu item poster appearing at the entrance to the restaurants. So, in between ogling the genuine cherished instruments and costumes of some of their favorite rock stars, customers will be able to experience an authentic wild food that really delivers in the flavor department: Alaska sockeye salmon. Rock on!

A new on-line training tool, Alaska Seafood U, has been launched on the internet this week. ASMI created the training resource about Alaska seafood, fisheries management and harvesting methods to augment current retail and foodservice waitstaff training practices. Short learning modules with colorful graphics and streaming video are followed by a short multiple choice quiz. A Certificate of Completion is earned upon successful completion of the course. Alaska seafood business, please take the time to acquaint yourself with this on-line resource, and share it with your customers. You can access Alaska Seafood U from the homepage http://www.alaskaseafood.org/.

"Ray's Wild Alaskan Yukon Salmon Chowder" by Boreal Fisheries Nets Honor

Randy and Edna Crawford were delighted to hear that a salmon chowder created by their small company, Boreal Fisheries, had won the Seattle "People's Choice" award. They had entered "Ray's Wild Alaskan Yukon Salmon Chowder" in the Symphony of Seafood new products contest held each year by the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation (AFDF). Only the Seattle "People's Choice" award, conferred by Bob Pawlowski, Executive Director of AFDF, has been announced. Results of the judged competition won't be announced until the Symphony of Seafood gala soiree in Anchorage January 31. It seems that the bar is raised higher each year: this year all of the products were excellent, so the competition is really stiff! For more information on the Symphony events and the competing products visit the AFDF's Symphony of Seafood website. ASMI is proud to be a founding and continuous sponsor, along with many leaders in the seafood industry.

ASMI's TV Ads Starring Ben Stein Hit Alaska Network
The same ads that will be running on cable's Food Network, HGTV and Fine Living during February and March, generating 96 MILLION household impressions, will be broadcast to Alaskans during those months on KTUU-TV Channel 2 in Anchorage and to rural Alaska via ARCS, which reaches 200 rural communities. The spots will be running adjacent to a statewide evening news program. It will give more Alaskans an opportunity to see the ads, which were generated for a "Lower 48" audience, and help policy makers appreciate the value and impact of advertising via television. ASMI's current television campaign has run for two years, and will shift to a solely print advertising campaign at the end of March and to a public relations program in July due to the complete expenditure of one time federal dollars.