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Boston Seafood Show 2001 (below)

Boston Seafood Show 1999

Boston Seafood Show 2000

Unusual Sites Abound in US Banking

An Overview of Backoffice Retailing Technologies

Jeff Berger is U. S. Technology Correspondent for (U. K.) Crier Publishing Company's Retail Management international magazine and because of his food writing experience, also writes for their frozen seafood publication. Here is a sample:

Certification, Innovation Highlight International

Boston Seafood Show 2001

by Jeff Berger

The International Boston Seafood Show, which ran here in Boston at the end of March, is rapidly running out of space, filling all three floor of Boston's Hynes Convention Center with 755 exhibitors drawing some 15,000 attendees from throughout the world.

The show focuses on seafood sources, processing, distribution, and marketing. Exhibitors include local officials from the US, Scotland, Norway, South America, and the Asia-Pacific region who are promoting local seafoods to prospective retailers, restaurants, and distributors; large seafood producers urging prospective buyers to sample their products; manufacturers of high-end and low-end seafood processing equipment displaying the equipment on site; importers and exporters; airlines looking for shipping customers, and many others.

As always, the show this year had a full slate of conference programs covering everything from the state of global fisheries to health regulations and certifications to marketing.

This article covers two conference sessions plus the best new products introduced at the show - but first, a perspective on U. S. companies seeking to sell seafood to Europe.

Are U. S. Companies Increasing Seafood Marketing To Europe?

Despite the seafood marketing opportunities that stem from the Foot and Mouth and Mad Cow Disease situations in Europe, most of the seafood marketers we spoke to here aren't focused on increasing their exports to Europe. They cite two principal reasons: first, there isn't enough supply, and second, they aren't exactly eager to meet the GMO (genetically modified organisms) requirements of some prospective European buyers.

Most of the companies we spoke to requested anonymity. Among their comments:
· "We have enough trouble getting sufficient product today to meet domestic demand," said a southeast US seafood marketer. He continued, "There is an unprecedented demand for beef and seafood here [in the US] due to the popularity of high-protein diets. We can sell everything we can get, so we're not looking at going overseas."
·

"We don't want to cope with that," said a well-known US manufacturer of processed seafood products referring to Germany's GMO requirements. "There's no way we're going to make the effort to go far up in the supply chain to find out if any of the constituents our suppliers or their suppliers have used are genetically modified. We have plenty of business without that."

· Not everyone was negative, however: "We have a department that does nothing but focus on everything that goes into our products," another prominent manufacturer said. "We think demand for non-GMO product is going to slowly increase, so we are making sure everything we sell to Europe meets those qualifications." Pointedly, the same manufacturer said he believes demand for non-GMO seafood products will eventually start being seen from consumers here in the US. "This way," the manufacturer admonishes, "we'll be ready."

· Most manufacturers said they simply can't get enough product to open new markets, and are perfectly satisfied to restrict most of their marketing to the US.

· Wild-caught seafood providers weren't concerned with the regulations since they don't feed the fish, and therefore have no GMO concerns.

"Aquacuisine" Named Boston Seafood Show's Best New Product

Of some 25 new products entered into the Seafood Show's annual New Products competition, AquaCuisine's Flame-Grilled Tuna Burger was awarded the show's Gold Medal. The sesame-teriyaki burger is made from Yellowfin tuna fortified with omega-3 fatty acids. "A special searing process gives the burger a true 'from the grill' taste that the judges enjoyed," show officials said.

The second prize silver award went to Pesca Freeze seafood for its precooked, vacuum-packed hard-shell clams. Atka USA took the bronze award for Cuisineuve, a line of frozen, "enrobed" shrimp available in four flavors.

There was no shortage of new-product innovation at this show. TopOcean introduced a line of Antarctic Krill, an altogether new product to both the United States and much of Europe. Company officials said huge concentrations of krill are in the Antarctic but have not before been exploited significantly for human use. The product tastes somewhat similar to a finely grated crabmeat salad, and favorably impressed many TopOcean booth visitors.

Panel: "Seafood Certification: How, When, and Where"

Seafood certification is advancing in popularity in a growing number of fisheries. Some wild Alaska salmon is certified by MSC, The Marine Stewardship Council, and farm-raised shrimp is certified by the GAA. These private-source certifications integrate environmental standards into seafood harvesting, production, and marketing.

The objective of all this, says Dr. Jorge Csirke of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is to verify the environmental integrity of the source fisheries and ensure competent seafood handling and processing.

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a "science-based voluntary ecolabeling program," offers certifications of fisheries themselves plus traceability through the chain of custody of the seafood. Certification's intent is to enable end-buyers to be assured that seafood "comes from where it says it comes from."

MSC's Jim Humphreys added that consumers want so-called "ecolabeling" for assurance that the wild-caught fish they're buying is from a healthy fishery, and that it has been responsibly handled and processed. He said the West Australia Rock Lobster fishery is the world's first to be MSC-certified. Humphreys noted that the biggest demand for ecolabeling today is from the United Kingdom.

Another panel member, Kristian Thorarinsson of The Nordic Group, described proposed criteria for seafood certification:

1. A fisheries management plan to ensure adequate fish stocks.
2. State of the stocks, related to qualitative determinations.
3. Pre-agreed management measures (precautionary - with limit reference points.)

Thorarinsson said that seafood certification could have significant effects on the seafood industry globally, among them:
1. Eliminate the effects of overfishing.
2. Protect coral and seabirds.
3. Reduce destructive practices and fish discards.
4. Provide fishermen with a market incentive.

Panel: "Pier Pressure: Seafood Importers and the FDA"

Although billed as a joint session between the US FDA and the National Fisheries Institute (NFI), a U. S. seafood industry advocacy group that calls itself "the voice of the US seafood industry," this was in reality a one-sided presentation by the NFI since scheduling prevented any FDA representatives from attending.

In July of 1999, then-US President Bill Clinton said, "We must give the agencies responsible for food safety the tools necessary to deal with importers who try to break the rules." The thesis of NFI's presentation was expressed by its presenter, Robert Collette, who said the US government "overreached the intent" expressed by Mr. Clinton.

All of this swirls around the fact that seafood imports comprise much of the US seafood supply - in 1998, 3.6 billion pounds valued at USD$8.2-billion, sourced from over 100 nations.

Currently, seafood imports are evaluated at the port of entry, where they may be held until released by US Customs and the FDA, which conducts periodic sampling and testing. In addition to HACCP, the current system sometimes detains or rejects misbranded or adulterated seafood, offers an opportunity for relabeling or reconditioning, and sometimes detains seafood without a physical examination, Collette said.

He quoted the US General Accounting Office (GAO) as saying, "Federal efforts to ensure the safety of imported foods are inconsistent and unreliable." The GAO, Collette added, said US penalties "do not effectively deter illegal distribution" including redistribution of rejected seafood.

Collette said the FDA's response to criticism was to revamp "its existing, inefficient port of entry system." NFI suggested that the FDA's Import Inspection Program should be risk-based, and that resources should be maximized by completing "inspection equivalency agreements" with certified private laboratories.

Boston Seafood Show Overview

One of the world’s largest seafood shows, the Boston International Seafood Show, is not only an annual showcase for the latest in seafood processing, storage, shipping, menu offerings, and preparation technology, it is also a major conference covering every aspect of the seafood business.

Our U. S. Technology reporter attended the show and several of the conference symposia. This is his report.

Is "Frozen" Seafood Getting Hot?
by Jeff Berger

(Boston, Massachusetts) --- American consumers have always been preoccupied with the notion that "fresh" food is better than any other alternative. In fact, food advertising here is permeated by the word "fresh" – "fresh red ripe tomatoes," "fresh grade A chicken," even "lemon-fresh" dishwashing liquid, "winter-fresh" toothpaste, and "lemon-fresh" furniture polish, none of which readily qualifies as food.

The same applies to fish; in fact, one highly successful chain of seafood restaurants based here in the Boston area, Legal Seafoods, has for many years used as its slogan, "If it Isn’t Fresh, It Isn’t Legal." Most supermarket ads for fish describe it as either "fresh" or "frozen," leaving it to the consumer to infer that "fresh" must mean "better quality."

But in one well-attended seminar here at the Seafood Show, it became crystal-clear that "frozen" is far from the opposite of "fresh" and that, in fact, "frozen" fish may well be of superior quality to "fresh" fish. Seafood marketers admit, however, that getting this message effectively communicated to wary, "fresh"-indoctrinated consumers is an uphill battle.

The seminar, entitled "Freshness Re-defined: Changing Consumers Perceptions," addressed precisely what consumers mean when they ask, Is it fresh? Do they simply want to know whether the fish has never been frozen, or are they asking about its quality?

"Advances in freezing technology have improved the quality of frozen seafood to a point where it can be fresher than "fresh." Yet consumers are urged to believe that ‘fresh’ is best, and based on past experiences some may order only fresh . . . ," seminar literature noted.

Gary Puetz, President and Owner of The Seafood Steward, Inc., of Washougal, Washington, suggested – tongue in cheek, perhaps — that the fresh versus frozen ‘red herring’ was devised by the beef industry to help it knock down seafood sales. He also noted a number of negative American English expressions which he suggested may have had a similar origin. "We talk about people being crabby, or about someone who has clammed up, or we cite a red herring, a fishy deal, or a cold fish. . . ," he noted.

Puetz, a strong advocate of frozen-at-sea fish, said that "fresh" fish may actually sit on a boat at sea for days after being caught, and that by the time it reaches port, is processed, shipped, and put on sale, or placed in front of a restaurant patron, it can be more than ten days old. By contrast, Puetz says, when the fish is frozen quickly at sea to a low temperature and "unthawed slowly prior to being cooked, it is essentially just 90 minutes old – or however ‘old’ it was when it was frozen at sea."

Although most American markets still carry a great deal of "fresh" fish, the term "frozen-at-sea" is starting to appear in an increasing number of seafood ads.

Jay Bornstein, President of Bornstein Seafoods of Bellingham, Washington, noted that 80% of his business is "fresh" seafood and said that the "fresh seafood system is different from the frozen seafood system. Ships make shorter trips," he explained, "processing and shipping are faster, and the consumer is willing to spend more." One of the reasons for fresh fish costing more is that it is usually air-freighted to distant markets. He added that fresh and frozen seafood marketers are not competitors, but rather are allies in a single effort to raise the consumption of fish by consumers. Their competitor is beef producers, not each other, he said.

Bruce Gore, President of Triad Fisheries of Bainbridge, Washington, has a system which he suggests offers his customers uniquely high-quality frozen Pacific salmon. Each line-caught fish is stunned in the water, live bled, and dressed immediately. "The main bloodline is back-flushed and all blood is hand-massaged from the back, tail, and belly flaps. They are handed individually into the fish hold where they are placed on refrigerated contact plates in an air blast freezer and flash frozen to minus 40 degrees F or below. Each fish is in the hold within 90 minutes of being caught and is frozen in a pre-rigor condition. Special attention is given to stringent on-board sanitation and the cosmetic appearance of every fish. After freezing is complete, each fish is hand glazed. A serial number tag is applied, enabling the entire history of each fish to be known and traceable," his literature says.

Gore pointed out that the main digestive juice of salmon is hydrochloric acid, which would destroy the quality of the fish were the fish simply put in a hold with other "fresh" salmon – hence the reason for his meticulous frozen-at-sea salmon processing. Gore uses 27 freezer boats to produce frozen-at-sea salmon, halibut, ling cod, black cod, rockfish, spot prawn, and albacore. "Quality can not be improved," Gore declares, "only maintained. Frozen is not the opposite of fresh; the opposite of fresh is unwholesome. With cryogenic freezing at sea, the ‘freshest’ products can come in a frozen state."

Gore noted that enzymatic activity in fish cells continues at temperatures below zero degrees Celsius or 32 degrees Fahrenheit, which is why freezing at 20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit is essential to "really freeze" fish and stop all enzymatic activity.

"A credible restaurant seafood counter requires continuity," Gore said, "which necessitates a different meaning for the word ‘fresh.’ That meaning is in a physical state closest to just caught. It does not mean ‘never frozen,’ which in fact may not be fresh at all." Gore concludes that with his process ". . . it is easy to see that the very freshest fish comes in a frozen state."

HACCP: An Update

According to the US Food and Drug Administration, the country’s foremost consumer protection agency, "The acronym HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, which is a prevention-based food safety system. Essentially, HACCP is a system that identifies and monitors specific food-borne hazards -- biological, chemical, or physical properties -- that can adversely affect the safety of the food product. This hazard analysis serves as the basis for establishing critical control points (CCPs). CCPs identify those points in the process that must be controlled to ensure the safety of the food."

The FDA is working closely with the seafood industry to ensure the appropriateness and efficacy of its HACCP guidelines. Failure on the part of seafood processors to be certified compliant to HACCP can be caused by many factors including improperly completing FDA HACCP forms, which happens often now, apparently due to the newness of the process.

Of the 3,830 domestic U. S. processors which the FDA currently recognizes, as of the beginning of this year the FDA had inspected 94% of them for HACCP compliance. Of that total, the FDA rated 27% NAI, or No Action Indicated; 3% OAI, or Official Action Indicated; and 70% VAI, or Voluntary Action Indicated.

Of more interest to readers of this magazine is the effect of HACCP on importers, of which the FDA has officially recorded 1,625. Only 61% had been inspected as of early 1999. Of that total, only 18% rated NAI; 3% rated OAI; and 79% rated VAI.

Brett Koonse, US FDA Chief of the Program and Enforcement Branch, moderated the HACCP update seminar. Koonse said that much of the non-compliance with HACCP reflects more of a learning curve on the part of processors rather than anything worrisome. But he added that the FDA is actively touring fish processing plants around the world which export to the United States, to enable them to both learn and comply with HACCP.

The obligation of companies overseas which want to export to the United States, Koonse said, is "to show documentation that fish was processed using HACCP. That includes written verification and written specifications. Moreover, the United States must have equivalency agreements with their countries." Koonse admitted, however, that no such agreements currently exist. (More on these later in this article.)

The HACCP guidelines themselves, as well as discussion, are on the World Wide Web at http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fcannex5.html.

Says the FDA website, "Employee training is key to successful [HACCP] implementation. Employees must learn which control points are critical in an operation and what the critical limits are at these points, for each preparation step they perform. Establishment management must also follow through by routinely monitoring the food operation to verify that employees are keeping the process under control by complying with the critical limits."

The FDA has established both domestic and import inspection priorities. Import inspection priorities include:

• Follow-up to inspection in which an importer’s HACCP verification procedures were not in compliance with the seafood HACCP regulation
• Follow-up physical samples of imported product in which safety defects were detected
• Follow-up to entries in which the importer’s verification activities were non-compliant
• Importers of "substantial risk potential" products
• Importers of "low risk potential" products only

Among "substantial risk potential" products are:

• Ready-to-eat fish or fishery products
• Scombrotoxin (histamine) forming species
• Stuffed seafood products
• Fish packaged in modified atmospheric or vacuum packages
• Acidified and low acid canned seafood (coverage for which is provided under other compliance programs)
• Raw molluscan shellfish (coverage for which is provided under other compliance programs)

As of March 1, the FDA had issued 48 Seafood HACCP warning letters to companies not in compliance with HACCP. Among the deficiencies cited by the FDA:

• No HACCP plan: 35%
• Hazards not listed: 23%
• Hazards not controlled: 46%
• Monitoring Record Data Missing: 29%
• Sanitation monitoring inadequate: 50%
• Sanitation monitoring and correction documentation inaccurate: 48%.

The percent occurrences of selected hazards not controlled by processors were:

• C. botulinum toxin formation, 13%
• Scombrotoxin (histamine) formation, 21%
• Food and color additives, 8%

Importers Obligations

The FDA cites three key obligations of U. S. importers of foreign-origin seafood:

• Obtain product from a country with which the FDA has an equivalence agreement, OR
• Develop written verification procedures AND develop written product specifications AND perform affirmative steps to assure compliance

The FDA said that its "equivalence agreements" require several stages of development before realization, which are: paper review; on-site audit; preliminary equivalence determination in the Federal Register; final determination after comment; and negotiation of the equivalence agreement itself.

The FDA is in various stages of negotiating equivalence agreements with other countries but as of mid-March had no equivalence determinations in place. Paper reviews were in "active progress" with Japan, Thailand, Iceland, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. Site visits had been conducted with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway. Site visits planned for fiscal 1999 include Japan, Thailand, and Iceland.

For overseas suppliers who export to the United States, the message is clear: become familiar with HACCP and orient your business toward compliance – or face the probability that your competitors will.

Among many other things, the Boston International Seafood Show features many new food products – it’s certainly never necessary to have lunch before entering the show floor, since visitors can easily gorge themselves on a seemingly endless variety of sample dishes. Salmon is ubiquitous; this year, both farmed tilapia and farmed alligator made a strong showing. In fact, three alligator heads adorned various booths in the 1,200-booth show at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center.

The show gives you a quick sense of what fish are plentiful or even overabundant, and which are in danger of being overfished. The "Finfish Summit" provided an interesting and considerably more in-depth look into the supply question.

[INSERT TABLE]

Additional figures supplied at the show indicate continued pressure on Haddock and Cod, which are under heavy regulatory pressure to replenish stocks in the Atlantic. The farming of Tilapia is increasing; its popularity is growing. Conservation measures appear to be helping swordfish, cod, and wild salmon.

Several years ago, there had been concern about overfishing of wild salmon. But the rapid growth of farm-raised salmon has led to a reduction in the pressure on wild salmon stocks.

This chart shows the number (in 1,000 tons) of wild versus farmed salmon harvested worldwide from 1988 through 1998. Figures from 1997 and 1998 are estimates. These figures are from Kontali Analyses, January 1, 1999.

It’s obvious that farm-raised salmon has now overtaken wild salmon in terms of productivity, a trend which is expected to continue. Forecasts of world farmed Atlantic salmon production for the next three years are 751, 818, and 892 (in 1,000 metric tons) in 2001.

The market for salmon has been undergoing large percentage increases over the prior year for several years – 22% in 1996, 21% in 1997, and 28, 22, 21, and 16% in the following years. France had the highest per capita consumption in 1998, 0.862 lbs. per person; the United Kingdom followed with 0.562 lbs.; the US had only 0.259; and Japan had 0.154. The sources for these figures were trade estimates and import records /DJSCO estimates by seminar presenter David Solomon, President of the Solomon Company, Weston, Florida.

The growth in the popularity of salmon is not soon expected to abate. Predicting a 10% rise in consumption through 2002 and only a 5% annual increase after 2002, forecasters say approximately 2.45 million metric tons of salmon will be consumed in 2008.

Years ago, banking here in the United States was both predictable and boring: if you could not get to a bank between 10 a.m. and about 2:30 p.m. weekdays, your transactions would simply have to wait.

In the early 1970s, automated teller machines (ATMs) started to appear and today, they are pervasive – not just in the entryways to most banks, but at supermarkets, restaurants, in stand-alone kiosks, and in an infinite variety of other places.

But ATMs clearly do not replace bank branches for many types of transactions. In an era of unprecedented competition in the banking business here, banks not only are expanding their hours but they also are expanding their locations – particularly into nontraditional locations, such as supermarkets.

Moreover, the weekday, limited-hours type of banking is rapidly giving way to banking at customer convenience. Most supermarket branches, for example, are open seven days a week, through much of the day and evening.

People’s Surpasses $1 Billion in Supermarket Office Deposits

A few weeks ago, People’s Bank of Bridgeport, Connecticut, a New York City suburb, said that it – a relatively minor player in the U. S. retail banking universe -- had surpassed $1 billion in deposits in its 44 Super Stop & Shop supermarket banking offices, exceeding that milestone eight months ahead of schedule. People’s average deposits of nearly $24 million per supermarket office are more than quadruple the industry average.

"When we implemented this banking initiative, we set an aggressive goal of reaching $1 billion in deposits by the year 2000," said People’s Chairman, CEO and President David E.A. Carson.

According to Gartner Group subsidiary Mentis Corp., and MarkeTech Systems, the banking industry’s average amount of deposits is $5 million for supermarket branches three years old and $16 million for offices more than 10 years old.

People’s was a supermarket banking pioneer in the U. S., opening an office in the Grand

Union supermarket in Westport, Connecticut, in 1979. Open seven days a week, People’s supermarket branches offer full-service banking and state-of-the-art technology. Using video conferencing, customers may consult face to face with the bank’s experts in insurance, investments, and retirement services.

People’s Bank Executive Vice President Mike Leone tells Retail Management International that Peoples is experimenting with on-site banking at business park locations. "We felt it made sense to bring retail banking and other services still closer to customers and prospective customers," he said, "so we opened a branch at Enterprise Towers, a business park in Shelton, Connecticut. The branch is full-service but cashless – it has a sales staff and Automated Teller Machines, and sells traditional products plus investments and insurance. It’s banking directly where people work." Leone says that so far, the "experiment" is "performing well" which implies that the concept is likely to be expanded in the near future by People’s and other area banks.

Banking Where Customers Learn, Shop, & Travel

There is substantial growth countrywide here in nontraditional branch banking. BankBoston, a mammoth Massachusetts-based retail banking company with 428 branches in four states, but most in highly industrialized parts of Massachusetts, believes in going where customers go. BankBoston reports "very good performance" at 13 full-service branches in shopping malls, three branches at Boston’s busy Logan International Airport, and two college branches – one at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and another at Bryant College in Rhode Island. A spokesperson refused to quantify "very good performance" but did casually tell Retail Management International, "if anything, those branches can outperform some traditional branches. They don’t require a special trip, or a separate stop. People like the convenience."

People Like Convenience . . . and People Like The Experience, Too

Gideon Haymaker, Executive Vice President of Florida’s Sun Trust Bank, believes banking is headed in the direction described in Jim Gilmore’s book, The New Experience Economy.

"Years ago," Haymaker told Retail Management International, "when someone wanted a birthday cake, they’d buy flour and all the other ingredients and make it themselves. Then Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker started offering cake mixes; they were faster but a bit more expensive. Today, most people simply buy pre-made cakes, which are available at every supermarket. And if you go to a place like Discovery Zone, they do an entire birthday party for you, and the cake is almost an afterthought."

What does this have to do with bank branches in strange locations? Everything, says Mr. Haymaker. " ‘The Experience Economy’ means that people do things for the experience, not so much for any accomplishment. Discovery Zone is an example. Birthday parties are an experience there, to such an extent that the cake is ancillary. It’s not that important."

Haymaker cited another example. "People go to Disney World here for the experience. It’s so good that you don’t think twice about paying $3 for a Coca-Cola: you pay it anyway."

In pursuit of banking "experiences" for customers and prospective customers, Haymaker has been talking recently with Walt Disney Company "Imagineers" (conceptual design engineers) about turning the retail banking experience upside-down – perhaps almost literally.

"There is an upside-down building here in Florida. We’ve mused about perhaps placing an upside-down appearing banking kiosk there and enabling people to take their pictures in front of it. The transaction might well become less important than the fun of simply visiting the place and having your picture taken in such an unusual atmosphere. This [banking] industry is moving into the ‘experience economy.’ "

Haymaker doesn’t stop there. His discussions with the "Imagineers" get rather goofy, in fact. "We are conceptualizing possible ‘theme’ branches within Disney World. Perhaps one would be a ‘Goofy’ branch, another a ‘Mickey Mouse’ branch, and a third the ‘Donald Duck’ branch." Photographs are possible here as well – and could be quite a tourist attraction. Perhaps an ATM in the branch is in Donald Duck’s big mouth . . . or you get a photo of yourself with cartoon mouse characters inside a branch that looks like a giant piece of cheese.

Says Haymaker: "People may want to save their receipts as souvenirs, since they could have special pictures of Disney characters. There are a lot of possibilities."

This article reviews retailing technologies from two perspectives:

• Operating Systems, which focuses on Microsoft Windows NT, Sun Microsystems’ Java and Jini, and Red Hat Software’s Linux.
• Backoffice systems, which focuses principally on Microsoft’s "ActiveStore" technology

Retailers’ Operating System Choices Expanding

As advances in backoffice retail technologies and the operating systems upon which they are based continue at a dizzying pace, technology suppliers are battling for position in a market whose only constant is "change".

As is the case in most office-related applications, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington, seems to have the upper hand in back-office technology, at least for the moment. Microsoft Widows NT seems to be strengthening as the operating system of choice, even as Microsoft continues to unveil beta versions of its successor, the Windows 2000 operating system, expected to be formally launched in about a year.

Migrate from UNIX – Or Peacefully Coexist?

One problem retailers face in growing numbers is either migrating their legacy data from Annex to Windows NT Server 4.0, or ensuring that both systems successfully interoperate.

"As Windows NT Workstation and Windows NT Server continue to gain support in the enterprise, the need for interoperability solutions increases," said Yusef Mehdi, Microsoft Director of Windows marketing. "It is Microsoft’s goal to provide a solution . . . that simplifies interoperability between Windows NT Workstation and Windows NT Server and UNIX, and to support leading players in the market."

One major player in the interoperability space is MKS, Mortice Kern Systems Inc., which markets its MKS Toolkit worldwide. As its website states, "MKS Toolkit is the market leading solution addressing the challenge of enterprise interoperability. As Global 2000 corporations work to bring together heterogeneous UNIX and Windows NT environments, industry endorsed MKS Toolkit provides the one unifying solution offering development teams access to the power of UNIX on the Windows NT platform. With MKS Toolkit, corporate IT managers can effectively deploy UNIX trained staff on new IT systems, and leverage existing investment in UNIX code and scripts onto Microsoft platforms. MKS Toolkit provides seamless integration and interoperability between your Windows NT and UNIX environments."

MKS also offers the "MKS Toolkit Update Edition" which it characterizes as an "upsell" to Microsoft Windows NT Services for UNIX Add-On Pack, released late last year by Microsoft. The MKS product seems to offer a great deal of what users seek. For details, visit the MKS website, http://www.mks.com/solution/tk/mssfu/. MKS and Microsoft are allies; MKS goes to great pains to emphasize that their product does not compete with Microsoft, but "extends" the capabilities of the Add-on Pack.

Says MKS Chairman and CEO Randall Howard, "Microsoft’s attention to the issue of enterprise interoperability, with the release of the Windows NT Services for UNIX, now gives these customers a readily available and completely workable solution. MKS is very pleased to work with Microsoft to extend the solution for customers that much further."

In fact, the MKS solution builds on Microsoft’s product in several ways. It provides multi-platform support for Windows NT, 95, 98, and more; NT Administration Tools including userinfo, groupinfo, member, su; NT Security Tools including chacl, lsacl, sid, security; Web Development Tools including htdiff, htsplit, mkscgi, web, url; File and Text Manipulation Tools (assoc, awk, ftype, uncname); Tape Utilities (tar, pax, cpio, dd, mt, Vpax); and Mail Utilities (mapimail, smtpmail.)

But Microsoft is neither alone in the operating system wars, nor is its Windows NT on a clear road to becoming ubiquitous.

Sun Microsystems’ Java and Jini and the Linux operating system both are involved in the operating system wars and neither of them is an insignificant player. Both give Microsoft pause – especially Linux, and for good reason.

Sun’s "Jini" is a piece of java code that enables devices such as PCs, printers, disk drives, etc., to communicate over a network irrespective of the network’s operating system or programming language. (You can learn more about Jini at www.jini.org.) Says Sun Jini Group business development manager Emily Suter: "There is not only data communication between two machines; now there’s code going between them."

Jini is big news in the supermarket industry. Says Gary Arthurs, Safeway’s director of IT business services: Jini is "the Holy Grail Microsoft failed to deliver."

"Our architecture," Arthurs recently told Information Week magazine, "is a Java-based enterprise server. Windows really isn’t that important to our strategy.

"Engineers had to configure every single machine when we ran a client/server architecture," he continued, "and it took days to work across the whole network. [Jini] is like turning a hairdryer on. You don’t care what voltage it is, just whether. . .it works. . ."

Meanwhile, another threat to Microsoft, the Linux operating system, has suddenly moved into mainstream computing, after sitting for years as a cult favorite in IT labs around the world.

Dell Computer and Red Hat Software, Inc. a leader in Linux technology and services, jointly announced in April that Dell will factory-install the Red Hat Linux operating system on Dell PowerAde servers and Dell Precision workstations. The announcement expanded the joint efforts of Dell and Red Hat to make Red Hat Linux a success in the corporate market, and also made Dell the first major systems vendor to offer Web ordering of systems with Red Hat Linux already installed. Dell said the move is a response to growing customer demand worldwide for systems configured with Linux.

Dell and Red Hat also said that Burlington Coat Factory had purchased 1,250 Dell OptiPlex desktop PCs with Red Hat Linux installed. "Our expanded partnership with Dell represents a broad commitment by both companies to make Red Hat Linux a success in the corporate market," said Robert F. Young, co-founder and CEO of Red Hat Software.

Corporate software giant Computer Associates is another vendor which has inked a partnership agreement with Red Hat Linux, along with Hewlett Packard, Intel, and many others. Perhaps more significantly, Linux is considered a looming threat because of its exploding availability in mainstream software programs, and because it is being ported to popular chips. It also is getting many accolades: Red Hat Linux is available for Intel, Compaq Alpha® and Sun SPARC® platforms. Red Hat Linux was named InfoWorld’s Product of the Year for three years in a row, was given a Productivity accolade in Software Development’s "Jolt" Awards, was named an Environment/Desktop finalist in the Ziff-Davis European Excellence Awards, won the editor’s choice awards from both the Linux Journal and Australian Personal Computing magazines, and won the "Just Plain Cool’" award from Australian Personal Computing magazine. Moreover, Red Hat, the leading builder of Linux products, has accepted offers of minority equity positions from Compaq, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Novell, and Oracle Corporation.

But Microsoft continues its aggressive push in the retail marketspace. In April, Microsoft inked a deal with ICL under which ICL will develop a new range of applications for retail businesses, education, and government, using Microsoft platforms as a foundation. The partnership calls for ICL to update its products for the retail business market and will make Microsoft server software the reference platform for ICL’s GlobalStore, PrecisionRetailing, and InteractiveRetailing applications.

According to Microsoft, its ActiveStore technology is "a multivendor initiative . . . that aims to reduce the cost, time, and risk associated with deploying retail technology at the store level. The ActiveStore retail technology architecture enables a true Plug-and-Play environment by making it easier for retail solutions from various vendors to work together, so retailers can select best-of-breed components from any source. ActiveStore works for all sizes and types of retailers, including physical stores, supply chains, and electronic retailing." . . ActiveStore tackles issues such as a common look and feel, system navigation, a common cross-application alert/event architecture, shared data elements, common security, common help, and a set of interapplication messages of major events.

Says Microsoft President Steve Ballmer: "We understand that no one vendor will be able to supply all of the top quality applications and solutions that retailers are coming to expect. ActiveStore should give the retailer the ability to select the best-fit solutions for their business problems from a wider variety of vendors than ever before. Microsoft is committed, along with its partners in the ActiveStore effort to make Windows and the set of Windows enabled retail application a better fit than ever before. Everyone should win in this arrangement, especially the retailer by being able to find and integrate the best set of applications to meet their needs."

Earlier this year, Microsoft and ICL’s Retail Systems Division showed how Microsoft’s Windows-based solutions "can make it easier and more cost-effective for retailers to install point-of-sale (POS) devices and back-end solutions, manage them remotely, and improve training, reporting and data-warehousing capabilities." The demonstrations utilized beta 3 of Windows 2000 Server, the upcoming replacement for Windows NT Server 4.0, plus Microsoft SQL Server™ 7.0, Microsoft Transaction Server, Microsoft Message Queue Server, the beta version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and industry-standard Compaq Computer systems to show:

• How new Windows Installer technology can be used to add in-store POS devices to a corporate network without technical service or network downtime
• How to send new applications, application updates, and operating system software updates to multiple remote store locations from the corporate server in one procedure
• How to utilize full-motion video and other content for computer-based training at the store level, via POS devices, to reduce training costs
• How to integrate POS applications and back-end solutions using ActiveStore™ retail business interfaces (RBIs) and SQL Server 7.0 for offline processing, suggested selling and loss prevention functionality, and quicker reporting from remote stores to corporate headquarters

"We have been very focused on listening to our customers’ needs in order to deliver the most complete, cost-effective technologies available to the retail industry," said Todd Weatherby, group marketing manager for retail and supply chain at Microsoft.

Global Store. The demonstrations also utilized ICL’s new GlobalSTORE solution, a leading open, scaleable retail trading system tightly coupled with ActiveStore. The latest version of GlobalSTORE, launched at the show, is one of the first fully ActiveStore-enabled store systems available to retailers today, ICL said.

"To date, there are more than 1000 stores using GlobalSTORE worldwide," said Adrian King, president of ICL’s retail systems division. "This latest release optimizes the solution for ActiveStore and provides retailers with greater flexibility and scalability as well as improved centralized systems management. In collaboration with Microsoft, we are striving to create retail solutions — such as GlobalSTORE, InteractiveRetailing and Corema, among others — that reduce total cost of ownership and help retailers achieve a higher return while better serving their customers."

Corema, by UK-based ICL, is a set of software and services designed to support all aspects of customer focused marketing activities. The portfolio covers:

• Frequent shopper programs and operational loyalty management

• Customer segmentation and reward targeting

• Basket analysis and promotional offer targeting

• Analysis and modeling of customers’ shopping behavior

• Assessing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns

There are two Corema products –

• Corema Projects are ICL’s way of delivering customized software and services tailored to meet the specific requirements of individual clients, and

• Corema Express is ICL’s new family of software packages delivered ready for use by marketing departments.

Gadzooks?

Late last year, Gadzooks, a Dallas, Texas-based specialty retailer of clothing and accessories for teenagers, announced a pilot solution based on ActiveStore retail standards and incorporating STR TradeWind, a Microsoft® Windows NT®-based store application.

The Gadzooks solution creates a new in-store platform that supports many of the company’s information needs. It "gets the company closer to its store employees, allows for ease of information exchange, and ultimately delivers a better shopping experience to its customers," the company says.

Committed to rolling out an ActiveStore-based environment, Gadzooks expects chain-wide implementation this year. "Customer service and information access are the keys to retailing success going forward," said David Gruehn, Gadzooks vice president of information systems. "We intend for our stores to function as if they were just one more floor on the corporate office building. The ease and simplicity offered by the ActiveStore framework, coupled with the flexibility and functionality of TradeWind, were key factors in achieving our vision for Gadzooks’ next generation of retail information systems."

Using the ActiveStore Software Development Kit, Gadzooks’ programming staff created a customized Windows desktop with special features to launch TradeWind, e-mail, an electronic newsletter, HTML-based forms and other tools. At the same time, the STR development team worked to integrate TradeWind into the new Gadzooks environment, by enabling the application to automatically sense ActiveStore, re-size screen objects and build ActiveStore-aware Component Object Model (COM) objects.

"The pilot solution that STR and Gadzooks architected is impressive," said Todd Weatherby, group marketing manager for retail and supply chain at Microsoft Corp. ". . . Interoperability and flexibility of store-level operations is crucial for retailers to stay ahead of the curve in terms of information management and customer service. It’s very encouraging to see developers beginning to utilize the ActiveStore framework to help retailers create their next generation of store systems."

Microsoft reiterated that software based on its ActiveStore framework is designed to offer significant benefits to retail businesses, including:

• Easy to use end user environment. "The desktop shell optimizes Windows for store-level task-centric users."
• Seamless integration. The ActiveStore framework "makes it easier for retailers to obtain application packages from a wide variety of vendors and make them work well together."
• Maximized use of Windows NT and COM architecture. Many of the services made available via ActiveStore "allow developers to utilize already created routines to simplify under-the-cover programming and maximize development of business features specific to specialty retail needs."
• Increased stability. Ultimately, the various activities controlled by ActiveStore are segregated from each other, which Microsoft claims enhances the stability of the retailer’s environment.

Boston Seafood Show -- Spring 2000

For a reporter, especially one who loves seafood, covering the Boston International Seafood Show is a dream assignment. Not only does it bring together many of the world’s foremost experts in every aspect of the seafood business, it also gives seafood junkies like me an opportunity to taste many samples of the latest in seafood culinary artistry.

Everything is represented at this huge show, from fishing cooperatives to government authorities to shippers, processors, processing equipment manufacturers, distributors, and buyers. With attendance this year of nearly 15,000 and more than 700 exhibitors, the International Boston Seafood Show is the world’s second largest, eclipsed only by the European Seafood Exposition.

PHOTOCAPTIONS (To readers: we do plan to show photos here but first we have to make the page load faster)

Selected photocaptions:

(Picture of fish with very peculiar expression on mouth):

Most global attendees fly in to the show, but this one was apparently displeased with his “seat” in a cargo hold.

(Serving pictures)

Many seafood distributors offer hot-off-the-griddle or right-from-the-fryer samples, to the delight of attendees eating their way through the show.

(American Indian dancer)

One seafood cooperative owned by native Americans had a tribal dancer at the show, doing traditional dances. A nearby booth provided product information.

[MAIN STORY TEXT]

The Boston Seafood Show succeeds at being all things to all people. For buyers it is a place to buy or to make buying contacts concerning virtually any seafood related hardware, service, or food product. For sellers, it is a nearly unparalleled marketplace to strut your wares before thousands of qualified prospects. And for retailers and restaurant operators, it’s a great place to survey what’s new and where taste trends are heading.

For everyone, though, the Seafood Show provides education. Among sessions offered this year were:

Millennium State of the Fisheries Summit

The Fisheries Summit offered perspectives on the status of the product lines, enabling marketers to “get ahead of resource issues.” This session is covered in more detail later in this article.

Profit from Seafood’s Healthy Benefits

Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish have a positive effect on heart disease and other chronic illnesses. This session offered information on those effects, and suggested a marketing program focused on health to increase sales. This session is covered in more detail later in this article.

Hot Trends in Retailing

A panel of retail seafood experts discussed trends such as seafood branding, seafood e-tailing, the burgeoning interest in organic products, new ready-to-eat and high quality frozen items. There was also discussion concerning anticipated consumer response to bio-engineered seafood.

New Products Catching the Buyers Eye

Three top foodservice and retail buyers discussed what they look for in a new product and what they think about the newest seafood products on the market.

Chef Trends: Spice Up Your Seafood Sales

When availability, consistency, and price of wild fish are becoming issues, many chefs and foodservice professionals are turning to farm-raised fish. While consistent in quality and availability and competitively priced, farmed raised fish tends to lack depth of flavor when compared to wild fish. The session discussed how chefs are adjusting their recipes and cooking styles to accommodate the variance.

State of The Fisheries Summit

This annual session focuses on the state of fisheries globally, offering perspective on which species are recovering in numbers and which are threatened by overfishing. Early in the 90s, the news on these fronts was not good, but in recent years many species have been improving. Here is a brief roundup by global region, from Dr. Andrew Rosenberg, Deputy Assistant Administrator, NOAA and NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service, US):

• Grand Banks: Stocks of scallops and groundfish are generally recovering here after 30 years of overfishing. In good supply: herring, surf clams, and lobster. Haddock and yellow-tailed flounder are both recovering “nicely.”
• Southeast US and Gulf of Mexico: King and Spanish Mackerel are recovering, as is Red Snapper. Shrimp stocks are stable but both grouper and red porgy are being overfished.
• Pacific: Skipjack is “underexploited.” West Coast (North America) groundfish is “in real trouble,” particularly slow-growing species. Yellowfin tuna catches are increasing.
• Alaska: Ground fish, stable. Halibut, fine. But crab stocks in the Bering Sea are collapsing.
• Southeastern Pacific: Sharp declines are mostly blamed on El Nino.
• Opportunities for growth: Northern Pacific arrowtooth flounder; East Coast herring and mackerel; Pacific migratory fish.

Jorge Csirke, Chief of the Marine Resources Service in the Fishery Resources Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, noted that not all fish is caught for human consumption. "Much of it is caught for manufacture into fish meal for aquaculture consumption," he said. He also noted that 20 million tons of fish are discarded at sea, sometimes including up to 90% of shrimp catches. Dayton Alverson, Owner and Chairman of the Board of Natural Resources Consultants, Inc. said “ ‘Overfishing’ is a commonly misunderstood term. It does not necessarily mean that fishermen are willfully catching excess fish. Rather, it means that they are either catching fish that are too young, or that they are catching too many.” Alverson also noted, “It doesn’t matter how much fish is available. What matters is that the rate of harvesting does not exceed the rate of replenishment.”

Health Benefits of Seafood

Melanie Polk, a registered dietician and nutrition educator, spoke extensively not only about the benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids, but about the relative amounts of those highly beneficial acids in various species of fish.

“Omega-3 fats are polyunsaturated fats,” she said. “Eskimos eat about a pound of fish a day and have virtually no heart attacks.”

Polk noted that Omega-6 fatty acids are found in vegetable oils and arachidonic acid. But Omega-3 fatty acids are found in fatty fish, particularly salmon, mackerel, and herring. While noting that “It’s wise to eat three portions of fish a week,” Polk was careful to point out that two portions of salmon “have as much beneficial Omega-3 fatty acids as 20 portions of sole or flounder.”

Farmed fish, she said, are generally higher in overall fat than are their wild relatives, but Omega-3 fatty acids are about the same. “There is no difference in Omega-3 fatty acids in cooked versus raw seafood,” she added. But the amount of Omega-3 varies not just by species, but also by location and time caught.

Home Market Potential Enormous, Puetz Says

Gary Puetz, “The Seafood Steward” and a widely acclaimed “fish evangelist” is a widely regarded seafood expert who has appeared a number of times at the Seafood Show. Something consumers equate with health benefits is the color of seafood. “When someone talks about how good some raw fish looks, they usually say, ‘You should see the color of that fish.’ In signage, in ads, and in what restaurant waitstaff says, color makes all the difference. If someone asks, ‘Is the fish fresh?’ The classic effective answer is, ‘You should see the color’ or ‘Look at the color.’ Today, 72% of fish is consumed in restaurants. That means the potential home market is huge. It’s all about color.”

Dr. Stewart Anderson, Aquaculture Technical Coordinator of Roche Vitamins Inc., agrees. At a focus group on fish color, consumers said color indicates “age, origin, price, expected flavor, freshness, and quality.”

In wild salmon, the classic bright orange color is due to carotenoids ingested from algae and zooplankton. Diet is the only source of these compounds, thought to bring major health benefits to the fish and possibly to humans as well. In fact, Anderson said that carotenoids have beneficial effects on the eyes, possibly on prostate cancer prevention, and other prospective benefits. Anderson noted that Roche markets a product called Salmofan, a canthaxanthin which makes farmed salmon look as bright orange in color as wild salmon – and therefore as desirable. With no significant difference in Omega-3 fatty acids or color, few consumers can detect any difference in taste between wild and farm-raised salmon.

In other news, the Import/Export summit examined the “unfairness” of fish export subsidies in various parts of the world. It was noted that US fish export subsidies total USD$25-million, while those in the European Union total USD$500-million and in Japan, USD$800-million. “This makes US pricing uncompetitive,” one panelist complained.

Issues of future importance: labeling fish for genetic modification. One panelist noted that concerns about genetic modification are so deep that “labeling can also involve genetically engineered food fed to fish, including grain.”

All trademarks used in this article are the property of their respective owners.

Copyright, © Crier Publishing Company Ltd, 2001, 2000, and 1999. Reprinted with permission by JMB Communications.

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