instore - October 2016 - 32

product knowledge

Sushi saturation?

Americans love sushi. According to the website statisticbrain.com, the
total annual sushi revenue in the US is $2.25 billion. But sushi has never
quite taken off in the world of retail foodservice.
It's definitely present, but just nine percent of retail deli executives
are focusing on enhancing sushi this year, according to Statista.
That ranked ahead of just two areas - category management and
beverage bars. And according to instore's exclusive research, detailed
in this issue, just 25 percent of all retail foodservice consumers have
purchased sushi from a supermarket.
What can retailers do to shuffle the deck? Trevor Corson knows a few
things about sushi and has some ideas. Corson, the author of "The
Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice," says fatigue may
be setting in with sushi as we know it. With the food becoming ubiquitous across retail channels, what will keep consumers coming back for
the same California Roll?
"The fact that sushi is trickling down to these c-store outlets means
that it's pretty well saturated already in the food culture," Corson says.
"It may be great now and people may be buying it now, but in terms of
what can make it better, I would start thinking about what can I do to
innovate the product so that it attracts more attention?"
The biggest change Corson says retailers can make is in the healthful
aspects of sushi. While it has had a reputation as being a "healthier"
food, consumers are beginning to think about that in a more complex
way. White rice, for example, isn't always thought of as a nutritionally
beneficial food. And many Americanized sushi rolls are loaded with
fattening sauces.
One way to counter that is to incorporate healthier grains and more
fresh vegetables into the rolls. Corson says some sushi restaurants and
even retailers like Whole Foods are beginning to do this, using ingredients like quinoa, purple rice, bright orange carrots and other healthy,
eye-catching ingredients.
"I've started to see some outlets using quinoa mixed with brown rice,"
he says. "And there are a lot of fresh vegetables out there that are really
exciting and colorful; things that are new, look new, have new colors

32 * OCTOBER 2016 * instore

Retailers might be able to boost
sushi sales by taking notes from
restaurants, according to author
Trevor Corson.
and are tapping into people's
interest in healthier vegetables
and whole grains. That's kind of
new territory, I think. There are a
few people innovating with this
at the restaurant level. I feel like
as people's health consciousness
is becoming more sophisticated,
there might be an opportunity to
innovate with this level of sushi."
Consumers also take food
safety into consideration when
purchasing sushi, perhaps even
more than when they are buying
other foodservice products.
Corson says he thinks those fears are overblown. "My feeling is, the
distribution network for the ingredients that go into sushi is that it's
pretty good," he says. "Sushi has become so completely ubiquitous
that there is a high-quality distribution network in terms of safety and
statistical risk. It's at the same level as a box of salad greens or a jar of
peanut butter."
But when it comes to fish, he says supermarkets and c-stores could
stand to consider higher-value sources, or even focusing on rolls that
don't necessarily need it.
"My personal feeling is that the vast majority of raw fish that is being
made into mid-level or supermarket level sushi is not actually worth
eating," he says. "It's not that it's bad or unhealthy; it just doesn't taste
like much. It just doesn't have much taste. Most of the time you're
tasting the chili mayonnaise, the soy sauce and the wasabi. People are
becoming aware that a lot of the fish in mid-level sushi, the quality may
be OK, but salmon farming has issues, and there are concerns about
contaminants in the fish. They will respond to more options."

ROBTEK - FOTOLIA / ADOBE STOCK

NEED TO KNOW

http://www.statisticbrain.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of instore - October 2016