Forgive the pun….. I used to be a headline writer. And I wrote some better than that (and many worse, once you’ve written 50 golden wedding anniversary headlines you tend to lose the will to live – ‘Couple’s golden day’, that’ll do…) but there’s only so many ways you can work Brussels into a headline.
It seem like only yesterday the sales team returned from the European Seafood Expo in the Belgian capital, but next week sees the return – albeit as a renamed Seafood Expo Global – of the ever-popular and bound-to-be busy show.
In seafood terms, Brussels is the daddy mack(erel) of them all. The plaice to be (Now we’re cooking on gas, bad pun fans). The Codfather (too much? Okay I’ll stop, I was beginning to flounder anyway – ahh, you threw us a red herring saying you would stop! Yes, but it is my sole purpose in life to write bad fish-based puns and remember, it is a fine line between love and hake). It is the creme de la fishy creme – and Sirane has exhibited there for a number of years.
Some of our products are perfect for cooking seafood, and that’s why we always go. Take Sirane’s range of steam cooking bags for example. It’s almost like these bags were invented for fish (well actually they were, but not just for fish). The results are simply stunning.
What’s more, the general public at large (ie people like me before I worked for Sirane for a few years) generally don’t know how to cook fish. It scares them. They don’t know what to do with it, and to be frank it is easy to get wrong. Which is where a cooking bag might come in handy for a retailer.
These bags can be printed. So it tells Joe Public on the bag exactly what to do with it. Microwave at 900W for 3 minutes. Done. It’s that straightforward. And it means the retailer can send the customer home happy, with a seafood spectacular in a bag…. and not only that, the retailer makes a bit more margin on the fish. Everyone, to coin a phrase, is a winner.
We’ve also got our very innovative Smart-Release bag. Now this bad boy is clever. The bag is split into two compartments – one for the fish, and one for the sauce. It stays that way until around half way through the cooking process in the microwave. At that point – when the temperature reaches a certain point – a seal between the two compartments will open, allowing the fish to be infused with the sauce. Impressive stuff, coming soon to a supermarket near you….
So Brussels here we come. It’s bound to be busy, bound to be tiring, and bound to be fishy. But whatever happens, there’ll be good waffles…
MARK LINGARD, MARKETING
