Tag Archives: kingklip

Woolworths’ ‘sustainable seafood’ practice very fishy, misleads customers!

It was episode 15 of MasterChef SA, flighted on Tuesday last week, that attracted attention to Woolworths’ communication about its commitment to sustainable seafood.  The TV commercial matched the reality TV series focus on seafood prepared on the beach at Paternoster, and Chef Pete Goffe-Wood gave a brief introduction to the South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI), saying that it educates consumers about buying fish responsibly. Woolworths is one of the major sponsors of MasterChef SA, and joins Robertsons as another MasterChef SA sponsor which is not being honest with consumers.

Chef Pete said that ‘green‘ rated fish is in order to buy, while ‘orange‘ and ‘red’ rated fish denotes fish varieties that are overfished and scarce, and should not be eaten.  The Woolworths TV commercial expressed the retailer’s commitment to sustainable seafood.

It was a visit to Woolworths the following day that made me check out the seafood section at the St John’s Piazza store in Sea Point, where I noticed the following:

*  the dominant SASSI poster about Woolworths’ ‘sustainable seafood‘ supply, using the SASSI colour rating

*   About half the fish sold is kingklip, on the SASSI ‘orange‘ list!

*   The ‘Fresh Fish’ department has fish displayed whole, and pre-packed in portions, and has a mix of such packs with and without the sustainability rating on it!  This is inconsistent per fish type, i.e. some of the kingklip is SASSI colour rated, and other packs are not.

*   The colour blue does not appear on the SASSI list, but the majority of Woolworths’ fish packs have a blue sticker. The Calamari Goujons pack I bought had a blue rating, with the heading ‘Fishing for the future’, which is defined on the pack as follows: ‘Our FISHING FOR THE FUTURE’ initiative is your guarantee that the product is responsibly sourced. Blue indicates farmed or imported‘.  It then provides the SASSI cell number for checking on the sustainability status of a fish type, and depicts and defines a green fish (‘Best choice‘), orange fish (‘Concern‘), and a blue fish (‘Farmed or imported‘)!

At the Canal Walk branch of Woolworths a sales poster attracted attention to a frozen hake promotion, and this carried the MSC logo for being ‘Certified Sustainable Seafood‘. Nowhere in its outlets does it explain what MSC stands for, and how it differs from the SASSI rating, leading to consumer confusion.

We Tweeted about the visible predominance of the ‘orange‘ rated kingklip in the St John’s Piazza store in Sea Point last week, and received the following reply by e-mail from Alana Jattiem of Woolworths (she did not supply her designation): “Thank you for getting in touch with us on our Twitter page. With regards to your concerns, SASSI has requested all retailers to remove labelling off packs, hence the phasing out of on pack labelling by Woolworths. Customers are welcome to check this with SASSI. Regarding your query on Kingklip, Kingklip is orange on the SASSI list not because of the stock status, but rather because of the impact of the fishery on by-catch such as sea birds. Our kingklip is sourced from MSC trawled hake suppliers who make use of highly effective by-catch mitigation devices such as “Torry lines” to scare off birds and thus, to a large extent, preventing them from getting caught. It should be noted that there are fishery improvement projects underway to make the kingklip fisheries more sustainable and from a retailer side we are asking our suppliers to get MSC certification on kingklip which would be a guarantee of its sustainability.  We hope this answers your concerns & questions. Thank you for your support”.

On pressing Alana for further information and clarification of where Woolworths is moving in its sustainable seafood programme, we received the following disappointing reply: ‘Given the changes required around SASSI labelling on product, we are in the process of revising and rebranding our fishing for the future initiative, which will cover certified products from the MSC, ASC, Sassi green label, and registered fisheries improvement programmes and new commitments through to 2015 . Please expect a full press release and awareness campaign in the next 4-5 months’. A third e-mail to Alana to request further clarification more urgently resulted in a non-response.

Given these disappointing replies, not understanding Alana’s cryptic and acronymic replies, and feeling fobbed off by her e-mails, I checked the Woolworths’ Pantry page on their website, which links blogposts to the theme of MasterChef SA week by week. There is no mention of sustainable seafood for week 15, which focused on seafood, and Woolworths’ commitment to it, as communicated in MasterChef SA’s episode 15.

I then checked the corporate Woolworths website, and under the heading ‘Good Business Journey’ found a lengthy statement about the retailer’s plan ‘to make a difference in our communities, our country and our world’, and its commitment to sustainability across a number of different fields (e.g. fibres, business, ecosystem). The company says it has a comprehensive plan to make a difference in respect of ‘transformation, social development, the environment and climate change‘.  On the company’s internal sustainability rating it scored 84% in 2010, it writes proudly. It then goes on to list all its awards relating to the environment, sustainability and responsibility.  There is no mention of its new ‘Fishing for the Future‘ initiative in this section at all, and information appears dated, with awards mentioned up to 2010 only!

At the St John’s Piazza branch of Woolworths the following fish types are sold:

*   Hake – ‘green’ rated

*   Norwegian salmon – some of the packs have no sustainability rating, others are rated ‘blue’ (with the same definition as the calamari above)

*   Kingklip – ‘orange’ rated on some packs, other packs not rated

*   East Coast sole – ‘orange‘ rated

*   Angelfish – ‘green‘ rated

*   Dorado – ‘green‘ rated

*   Yellowtail – ‘green‘ rated

*   Salmon fishcakes – no rating, and type of salmon unspecified in one pack type, and ‘blue’ rated in another pack type!

*  Norwegian salmon slices – ‘green‘ rated (one wonders why it is ‘green’ when its fresh Norwegian salmon is ‘blue‘ rated?

*   Smoked snoek – no rating

*   Mackerel – no rating

*   Snoek and haddock fishcakes – ‘blue‘ rated

*   Pickled fish – ‘blue‘ rated, even though its hake content is ‘green’ rated!

*   Haddock fishcakes – ‘green‘ rated

*   Smoked kippers – ‘blue‘ rated

*   Smoked trout – some packs ‘blue’ rated, others not at all!

*   Frozen lobster tails, half shell scallops, black tiger prawns, and ‘prawn meat‘ packs are all not rated!

*   Lightly smoked mackerel – ‘blue‘ rated, plus has a confusing green logo to show it is high in Omega 3, and a blue MSC certification logo

*   Lightly smoked hake fillets – ‘green‘ rated, and blue MSC logo.

On the SASSI list snoek, West Coast lobster, as well as Alaskan salmon are green rated. Deep-water and shallow-water hake, kingklip, king mackerel (line fished), prawns, East Coast rock lobster (hand collected), Atlantic salmon, sole, and yellowtail farmed in sea cages are all orange rated.  Norwegian salmon, of which Woolworths sells a large quantity, does not appear on the SASSI list.

MSC stands for Marine Stewardship Council, an international organisation that conducts audits of sustainable seafood from catch, to supermarket sales, to restaurant presentation. Nowhere in the Woolworths stores is any information provided about MSC, or is the abbreviation defined, other than two fish types having the MSC eco-label. At St John’s Piazza branch I noticed a second poster, with the three colours Woolworths is using, adding blue to denote ‘farmed or imported, not listed by SASSI‘, being downright dishonest and confusing to consumers in making it appear that ‘blue’ may be a SASSI rating, in that it contains SASSI’s name, cell number, and website address, but makes no mention of MSC! The poster concludes that Woolworths’ ‘fish and seafood is responsibly sourced, legally caught, has full traceability’. This poster is smaller than the one at the top of our blogpost, and is not visible to shoppers buying the pre-packaged fish on the opposite shelf, as they would have their back to both posters!  The staff member at the fresh fish department could not answer any questions, and said she only started working at this Woolworths  branch yesterday!

It appears that Woolworths is at early steps of becoming sustainable as far as its seafood supply goes, and has jumped the gun in creating a TV commercial in this regard, in not being able to practice what it preaches in the ad! It needs to be consistent in labelling all its fish products in store. Fish stock sustainability is not only a South African issue, but also an international one, and therefore creating a ‘blue‘ rating is irresponsible (because it does not exist on the SASSI rating system), and labelling all imported products into this rating is too, as imported fish varieties need to be responsibly eaten too!  It is deceiving consumers to use the ‘blue’ rating, to make them think that it is in order to buy these fish products. While I personally love kingklip, Woolworths should discontinue its supply of this endangered fish variety, as well as all its other ‘orange‘ fish types, in order to remain true to its ‘sustainable seafood’ commitment! Currently it is a fishy and confusing  consumer con!

POSTSCRIPT 3/7: Impressed that Woolworths has called (what a bubbly and friendly media person Babongile is!), and has invited me to a meeting to discuss the blogpost with them next week.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage

MasterChef episode 15: Blood, Sweat and Tears; Fishy in Paternoster, Khaya Silingile sauced out!

Last night’s episode 15 of MasterChef South Africa is one of the most beautifully filmed, on the beach of Paternoster, the ‘kreef town’ of South Africa, Sue-Ann Allen said.  The Red Team of Sarel Loots and the Blue Team led by last week’s dish winner Manisha Naidu had to cook their seafood platters on the beach. The Red Team lost the challenge and went into the Pressure Test, and Khaya Silingile had to leave MasterChef SA.

Chef Pete Goffe-Wood said that Paternoster is a ‘quaint West Coast village, a magnet for chefs passionate about seafood’.  He spoke about the South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI), which educates consumers about buying seafood responsibly, and also to order it responsibly in restaurants. Unfortunately he did not explain it further, ‘green’ rated fish being in order to order and buy, while ‘orange’ and ‘red’ rated fish denotes fish varieties that are overfished and scarce, and should not be eaten.  To tie in with the programme, Woolworths flighted a commercial based on its fish offering, and also declared its SASSI responsibility.  The six Finalists were introduced to Chef Suzi Holtzhausen, who ran a cooking school in Johannesburg before moving to Paternoster eight years ago, where she runs a B&B and her restaurant Gaaitjie, beautifully located on the rocks at the edge of the beach.

The Finalists were divided into two teams, being allowed to choose their team members. Manisha chose Sue-Ann and Lungi Nhlahla for her Blue Team, while Sarel chose Deena Naidoo and Khaya for his Red Team.  They had to ‘celebrate West Coast local cuisine‘, and prepare in two hours a ‘Seafood Platter of a Lifetime’, with enough food for fifteen of Chef Suzi’s invited guests and ‘VIPs’, being locals of the fishing village.  The Blue Team chose to prepare grilled crayfish, marinated trout (an odd choice for a village catching its food from the sea), and fried calamari. Manisha chose to make a white wine sauce for her team’s fish dishes.  The team’s food was served first, and its food was described as being ‘nice and soft’ by a local, its prawns were liked, as were the oysters served with horseradish sauce. The Red Team also made prawns, deep fried calamari, yellowtail, asparagus, served with wasabi mayonnaise, tartar sauce, chilli sauce, lemon butter, and peri peri sauce.  Sarel had to gut the fish, and whilst doing so, he cut himself badly, and had to receive medical treatment.  Khaya and Deena carried on without him for a while, probably giving their team a knock.  The southeaster was blowing strongly, and Khaya tried to shield her team’s food from it.  The prawns and yellowtail were praised, the crayfish was said to be undercooked, and the good selection of sauces, especially the tartar sauce, was liked.  Manisha commented about how stressful it is to stand and wait for the voting.  Chef Suzi and her guests had to each vote, and the first team to obtain 8 votes was declared the winner, the honour bestowed upon the Blue Team.

The Red Team of Khaya, Sarel, and Deena went into the Pressure Test back at Nederburg, and they had to replicate the dish that won the silver medal at the Culinary Olympics in 1995, of which Chef Andrew Atkinson was a SA team member, and which he said took four years to perfect. It was a brioche encrusted Springbok loin, an asparagus tower with a mushroom and leek ragout, a peppadew relish, and served with a Béarnaise sauce infused with Rooibos tea, and charcoal and tomato pasta.  They had 2½ hours in which to replicate the dish.

Deena picked up a problem almost immediately, in that his Béarnaise sauce ‘split’, which he said ‘derailed my thought process‘, the first time we have really seen Deena worried.  He added that he was disappointed with himself, and said that ‘I don’t think I have performed adequately in this challenge’.  His sauce was said to resemble scrambled egg, his asparagus looked like a ‘leaning tower‘, the pasta was ‘spot on’ said Chef Andrew, with the right thickness and he could taste the roasted nutmeg. The asparagus lacked seasoning, and some of it was overcooked. Chef Benny Masekwameng praised the well-cooked relish. Sarel bumped his sore finger whilst preparing his dish, and said it throbbed in ‘ache and pain’. His Béarnaise sauce was prepared at too high a heat, and curdled.  The asparagus tower was praised, and all the spears were of the same length, Chef Pete said. The meat was described as ‘blue’ by Chef Pete, but Chef Andrew said that it was in order for game to be served rare. His ragout had  ‘just the right amount of balance’, and his dish was judged to be almost identical to that prepared by Chef Andrew, except for the sauce. Khaya made the pasta herself, saying it was not as easy as it looked. She admitted that she had never made Béarnaise sauce before, and her sauce ‘split’ too. The judges spoke amongst themselves about her preparation, saying that she had left things ‘to the last minute’ and that her pasta was too thick.  Her asparagus spears faced the wrong way, she was told by the judges, her asparagus tower looked like a ‘teepee’, not all the asparagus spears being of the same length. Chef Benny praised her for her meat being perfectly prepared but lacked some seasoning but this was counteracted by her spicy relish. Chef Pete found her meat dish to be ‘very bland’, not being able to taste the mustard under the crust. Chef Andrew added that the pasta was too thick, that the sauce had split, and that he could not taste the nutmeg.  She said that she was ‘content‘ with what she had prepared. As Khaya’s dish had the most errors, she was sent home, with words of praise for her passion, and she was encouraged to carry on with it. Chef Pete wished her well with her new family, having announced her pregnancy in episode 13.  She said that she enjoyed many highs and few lows in the programme, and that she had learnt patience by participating in MasterChef SA.  Her friend Lungi seemed more sad than Khaya herself, crying about her departure.

Exciting news is that Chef Michel Roux Jr, of two-star Michelin La Gavroche restaurant in London, is to be featured in episode 16 next week, conducting one of too few Masterclasses on the programme series.

POSTSCRIPT 27/6: Visiting Woolworths’ St John’s branch in Sea Point today, it was interesting to see their SASSI poster near the fresh fish section. Of concern, however, was that more than half of the fresh fish packs do not denote the SASSI sustainability colour rating. Of even greater concern is that they sell quite a lot of kingklip, rated ‘orange‘, defined as ‘conservation concern’ on its own in-store poster! They qualify ‘orange‘ fish, writing that ‘some ‘orange’ fish are caught when catching ‘green’ fish. This is known as bycatch. We only sell selected bycatch from well managed fisheries’! One wonders if kingklip qualifies as ‘bycatch‘. The poster also states that ‘Woolworths is working with its fish suppliers and WWF (World Wildlife Fund) to ensure sustainable seafood.’ It provides a cell number (079 499 8795) which one can sms to obtain the SASSI rating of any local fish type.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@Whale Cottage

Restaurant Review: Blowfish Restaurant will blow fishlovers away!

I rarely go to the Tableview and Blouberg area. When I received an invitation from Nikki Dumas to join her at Blowfish Restaurant for an early dinner, prior to seeing a preview of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, it seemed an appropriate ‘starter’ to a must-see movie.  

Nikki is a wine consultant to Blowfish, and has won a coveted Diamond Award from Diner’s Club International for the winelist she has created for Blowfish for the past two years, as well as a Wine Spectator Award.   She is a passionate wine lover, and uses the word ‘swirl’ a lot.  She came to Cape Town to open Vilamoura in Camps Bay, and then joined the Slick restaurant group when Vilamoura closed down.  She worked at both Balducci and Belthazar, on the wine side, and became Deputy General Manager.   She has been a wine consultant for over a year now, her Winestyle consultancy offering waiter training, winetastings, and she compiles winelists.

Blowfish belongs to the Singer Group, which has a number of hospitality interests.  I recognised Oliver Wing, the Operations Manager, when I arrived.  He used to be a manager at Haiku and Bukhara, and was sent to London to open Haiku there.  The restaurant is located in the Dolphin Beach Hotel in Blouberg, and is a large space, seating about 180 guests.  The restaurant has a view onto the Atlantic Ocean, over the roofs of hotel rooms below.  It is a large open-plan room, with a sushi bar with conveyor belt, a bar, and upstairs there is a TV/smoking room, as well as the wine cellar, in which functions are hosted, including workshops on how to make sushi.    The chairs are Greek-style, all in white, and white is the dominant colour in terms of furniture and fittings, except for beige plastic table cloths.  

Blowfish uses a cute illustration of a blowfish on every page of its menu and on the winelist, creating good synergy between the two documents.  The pay-off line is ‘Seafood Sushi Sunset’, it being rare for a restaurant to have one.

There is a fish counter (as per Codfather in Camps Bay), from which one can order a selection of fish and shellfish, in the size of one’s choice, which is then weighed and charged.  The fish types on offer at Blowfish are angelfish, bluefish, butterfish, calamari, Cape salmon, Dorado, kingklip, monkfish, Norwegian Salmon, cob, sole, swordfish, tuna (yellowfin), yellowtail, sardines, Cape rock lobster, king prawns, langoustines, Tiger medium prawns, Tiger giant prawns and oysters.   I was impressed that the cost per gram was shown per fish type.  Soon a similar meat counter will be introduced. 

What impressed me tremendously was the depiction on the menu of each of the ‘green’ fishes on the SASSI list, which are those that are in good supply.  A whole page of the menu is dedicated to the restaurant’s “Green Values”, the first time I have seen this on a menu.  It states that the restaurant is a “SASSI Aware” participant, to “promote and offer you sustainable seafood choices from legal sources in an effort to help improve the conservation status of over-exploited seafood species.”   Contact details of the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative are provided.   Near the fish counter a SASSI poster has been put up, showing the different green, orange and red fish and shellfish types.  I would have loved to see them show the orange symbols on the other fish dishes (e.g. prawns and kingklip) on the menu, to be absolutely correct, allowing their customers to choose whether they want to order ‘orange’ fish.  By implication, the non-marked fish dishes on the menu would be orange.

The Blowfish menu is very extensive in offering sushi, salads, soup, platters, combinations of meat and fish, and the fish ordered from the counter.  Starters range in price from R40 – R55, and include a bacon and seafood skewer, bushveld sushi made with crocodile, trio of salmon, Thai-style fishcakes, king calamari, Wok beef, and mussels.   The sushi choice is vast, covering two pages of the menu,  including Fresh rolls, Cooked rolls, Traditional Maki rolls, Inside Out rolls, platters (ranging from a 12-piece Nigiri at R125 to a 60-piece Chef’s Speciality platter at R550), sushi salads and hot sushi.  The cost for smaller portions of sushi depends on its ingredients, roughly ranging from R25 for three to R45 for four pieces.  The Chef’s Recommendation section has a selection of dishes, ranging from R 95 for the kingklip to SQ for the crayfish curry.  One can also order duck, Fillet Mignon, lamb rack, and the Chef’s signature dish, being Seafood Espetada.  Platters cost as little as R99, for the Blouberg platter (kingklip, calamari, and prawn skewer), up to R 220 for the Kite-Boarders platter (mussels, calamari, linefish and rock lobster).   A selection of stir-fry dishes is also available, from R65 upwards.

I love a prawn and avo handroll, and that at Blowfish was the best I’ve had, being more moist than recent ones I have tasted, with mayonnaise added, very reasonably priced at R40.   It was hard to choose what to order from the menu, and therefore I chose a piece of kingklip, some calamari and a tiger prawn from the fish counter, to be grilled and served with Basmati rice.  The selected fish and shellfish is prepared with the “fishmonger’s” seasoned ‘signature Blowfish spices’, and one has a choice of four sauces: lemon butter, garlic butter, sweet and sour, and peri peri. 

As the movie started at 8 pm, and I had to drive to the Waterfront to see it, I had to eat quickly when the main course arrived, to make it back to the city in time.   I could not finish all of the food, as it was far too large a serving.  It was excellent, the massive prawn being a highlight.  I missed out on the desserts, but could have ordered a Lindt chocolate brownie, Croque en Bouche, baked cheesecake, chocolate banana spring rolls and more, at a most reasonable cost of R25 – R 35.  A cheese platter is also available at R75. 

Nikki has created two winelists for Blowfish, one just focused on imported wines, and the other on local wines.  She is very proudly South African when it comes to her wine recommendations, and she has included about 140 local wines on the winelist.  She describes each variety, indicating the colour one should expect, and the flavours they should have.   The region of origin of each wine is indicated, and the wines are listed from lowest to highest price per variety, the perfect winelist!  The Sauvignon Blanc section is the largest, with 24 options, and the prices of all the brands are very reasonable, ranging from R 90 for Hazendal to R240 for Neil Ellis.  MCC’s start at R90 for Pieter Cruythoff Brut, which Nikki says comes from the Swartland, to R428 for Constantia Uitsig.  White wines sell better than red wines at Blowfish, but Nikki has a good selection of red wines too.  Ten Shiraz wines are offered, the Landskroon and Porcupine Ridge being most reasonably priced at R105, to R 260 for Grande Provence.  Corkage is the lowest I have seen, at R20 for the first two bottles, and increases to R50 per bottle thereafter.   The winelist also proudly records the awards it has won.

While Blowfish is too far for me to travel to from the Atlantic Seaboard, I know where to eat when I next go to that area.  I could see how popular the restaurant is amongst locals – from being the first to arrive at 18h00, the restaurant was close to full with locals, bringing their children and babies in prams, when I left two hours later.

Blowfish Restaurant, Dolphin Beach Hotel, 1 Marine Drive, Blouberg.   Tel (021) 556-5464 www.blowfishrestaurant.co.za  Twitter: @BlowfishCTN  Nikki Dumas’ website is www.winestyle.biz

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage