Tuesday 8 April 2014

Supermarket Secrets - how the Tescos are sourcing seasonal fish


Some supermarkets are making an effort to go with the seasonality of products and sell fresh and not frozen fish when they are in season and even sourced locally. Watch as Greg Wallace leaves the comfort of the Masterchef studio and heads for one of his favourite haunts, an early morning market - in this case it's the fish market at Brixham in Devon. 

Braving the chilled temperature controlled environment Tesco's head fish honcho Gary Hooper takes Greg on a guided tour of the fish auction and shows him the fish they are now pushing on some of their 480 wet fish counters as seasonal alternatives to cod, haddock and salmon the perennial favourites of the UK piscine palate. Ling and hake - both caught in bigger quantities these days by the netting fleet in Newlyn feature - some of the Newlyn netters put all or part of their catch to Brixham every landing so as not to saturate thier home market with fish.

Next up, Greg heads west and joins the highly specialised catamaran Lyonesse as she makes her way @ThroughtheGaps and out into Mount's Bay for a spot of sardine hunting - though it seems that chefs and sardines prove to be something of an oxymoron as Greg proves marginally more successful than some of his predecessors like Sanjay Kumar or more infamously Sir Keith Floyd and manages half a basket of the elusive sardine - proving that fishing is as unpredictable as ever and fish even more so!