King of fish takes the crown at Seafood Expo Asia

New products made with farmed salmon and trout from Tasmania, Scotland, and China have won first, second, and third prizes respectively in the inaugural edition of the Seafood Excellence Asia Awards.

The winners were announced today at Seafood Expo Asia, a three-day seafood trade event taking place at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre in Singapore this week.

Australian fish and shrimp farmer Tassal – now owned by Canadian seafood producer Cooke - won the Best New Product award for its Tassie Smoked Salmon Twin Pack 2 x 50g.

The awards for second and third place for Best New Product were given to Hong Kong-based Victoria Island Smokehouse for its Pure Prestige Scottish Smoked Salmon and Shanghai Shanhaiji Supply Chain Co, Ltd for its Ready-to-Eat Salmon Trout, respectively.

Sweet and sour tilapia

Other products entered for the contest included frozen whole cuttlefish, crispy crab chips, wild Mediterranean blue crab, a sturgeon caviar sourced from Italy and sold by Victoria Island, and sweet and sour tilapia steak from Guangdong Evergreen Conglomerate Co., Ltd, a Chinese finfish and shellfish producer and processor that farms in both the sea and freshwater ponds. The company has more than 6,000 large deep-water cages and an annual processing output of more than 200,000 tonnes.

Winners were selected from a group of new products entered in the competition and representing eight countries. A live judging took place yesterday in the Product Showcase at the Expo and was conducted by a panel of high-volume seafood buyers and industry experts from the retail and foodservice industries across Asia.

Seafood Excellence Asia is an extension of the Seafood Excellence awards events featured at Seafood Expo North America and Seafood Expo Global, which consist of seafood buyers tasting, judging and selecting the best seafood products in the retail and HORECA (hotel/restaurant/catering) sectors.

All three events are organised by US-based Diversified Communications.