How Wild Alaska Pollock Wins 2022 Restaurant Food Trends

We all wish for that crystal ball to tell us what the future holds. While we can’t predict everything and life always has a way of throwing us a curveball, Nation’s Restaurant News in their December print edition got together an epic list of food and restaurant trends analysts who shared their predictions for what the restaurant scene will look like in 2022. Out of their 44 trends, I think Wild Alaska Pollock is well-positioned to capture quite a few of them. 

First up: experts are predicting that Singaporean Cuisine is going to be hot, hot, hot (much like the traditional food dishes there!). Singapore, the city-state on an island at the tip of the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia, has a distinctive cuisine that reflects the Chinese, Malay and Indian heritage of most of its citizens. Amusingly, the experts hypothesize that most Americans were introduced to Singaporean culture from the 2018 movie “Crazy Rich Asians” (a movie I’ve watched an embarrassing number of times and actually quite enjoyed). The experts declared that the famed Singaporean curry noodle dish Laksa will be the dish of the year in 2022. So how does Wild Alaska Pollock win this trend? Well, take Laksa for starters. It’s a curry noodle dish that features prawns, surimi, or whitefish, or a combination thereof, as the protein topper of choice. And, Singaporeans, like many Asians, are a more fish-focused and fish-friendly society—with menus here in the U.S. keeping with that focus and tradition. Personally, I’ve long-loved Singapore and it ranks one of my top travel destinations, in large part because of the diverse and celebrated food culture there (just leave out the 100-year egg, please!). I’m excited that I’ll be able to get some Singaporean food here in the states without the long-haul flight. Perhaps even some takeout while watching Crazy Rich Asians (smile).

Next Up: Caribbean Cuisine: Another ethnic cuisine positioned to win the year is Caribbean-inspired dishes. The region extends from the West Indies to Belize and Guyana has experts calling it the home of the “cuisine of the year.” Caribbean cuisine encompasses many cultures and cooking styles—from conch fritters and barracuda steaks to mofongo and callaloo—the foods of this culture are becoming increasingly popular. The article attributes that popularity, in part, with ex-pat chefs here in the States exploring their culinary roots. Well, we’re the beneficiaries of that culinary exploration for sure. Like Singaporean cuisine, Caribbean culture is fish-forward. With fish appearing on the menus more, there’s a greater chance of that fish being Wild Alaska Pollock fillets, Wild Alaska Pollock-based surimi seafood, or even Wild Alaska Pollock roe. Fish-focused cuisines becoming more attractive to Americans helps increase our per capita seafood consumption and increases the consideration of fish being on the menu for a variety of occasions. That means, more consumers seek fish at restaurants AND at retail. Enter Wild Alaska Pollock for the win, win, win.

Speaking of fish, next on the trends list—and I can hardly believe it—was dry-aged fish. Yes, you read that right. Now, for a meat and potatoes born-and-bread-midwesterner like myself, I didn’t think I’d see the day where you could dry-age anything other than a steak. Yet, here we are. According to the trends analysis, there’s going to be more dry-aged fish on the menus at American restaurants in 2022. This practice has long been applied in Japan to oily fish to concentrate their flavors, similar to the way beef is dry-aged. Analysts expect this trend to spread more in the U.S. as consumers delve more deeply into Japanese cuisines. For Wild Alaska Pollock, this trend bodes well for all of the aforementioned fish-focused reasons, but also leads me to believe that things like fish jerky—produced by a number of our partners including Neptune Snacks—will continue to rise in popularity.

Reducing Carbon emissions. Next on the list were several trends about consumers getting tired of the lip service and greenwashing around environmental sustainability and looking for real action from their food purveyors. In 2022, experts are predicting that we’ll see more restaurants tie sustainability goals to executive compensation and become more transparent about measurable metrics. With Wild Alaska Pollock being one of THE most sustainable proteins on the planet—bar none—there’s a huge opportunity for executives looking to meet their sustainability goals to menu Wild Alaska Pollock as a significant sustainable solution. We just have to keep spreading the word about our low carbon footprint and introducing more corporate chefs to our available, versatile products.

Last but not least, a number of the 44 trends spoke to the changing landscape for restaurants overall. The rise of ghost kitchens and the “creator economy.” The improvement in takeout or delivery quality control from restaurants. Updating layouts in restaurants to downsize front of house and maximize back-of-house space. Labor shortages. Eliminating “fussy” fine dining. The list goes on. But one thing that stuck out to me in reading all of the trends about the future was a continued reference to “cuisine variety.” With introducing more kitchen space and reducing front-of-house space, there’s the potential for restaurants to feature multiple cuisines under one roof, in one order. This could, experts say, lead to restaurants diversifying their menus to serve multiple cravings—and it could allow operators to get more creative with their R&D. For the last three years, we’ve run a partnership program and restaurant weeks in markets including Seattle, Nashville, and Chicago--all to entice new restaurants to feature Wild Alaska Pollock on their menus. With a renewed focus on innovation, R&D, and creativity, now is more prime-time than ever to introduce chefs to the versatility of Wild Alaska Pollock fillets, surimi, roe, and other forms and get this perfect protein on more menus from coast to coast.

While the restaurant industry continues to take hits from COVID, there is no more resilient industry than the food industry. While "the times they are a-changin'", the opportunity is huge for Wild Alaska Pollock and the Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) is here to help identify those opportunities and work with our amazing industry to help leverage them. So cheers to 2022—And no offense to the Tiger intended, but I think it’s going to be the year of Wild Alaska Pollock.