Wild-caught seafood is what shoppers at US-based supermarket chain QFC are looking for this year, Adam Branin, QFC’s meat and seafood merchandiser, told IntraFish.
“It’s always been an important driver of sales in the [Pacific] Northwest, but I’ve seen it across the country; it has been more of a prevalent trend that customers are demanding,” he said.
Branin oversees all of the meat and seafood merchandising and operations for Kroger-owned QFC, where seafood sales make up 20 percent of the chain’s total meat and seafood business.
Seafood is extremely popular in the Pacific Northwest part of the United states, where QFC operates more than 60 stores. “We do our fair share of seafood business, quite frankly, better than a lot of our peers,” he said.
Wild salmon, wild pink shrimp and Dungeness crab are among the chain’s top selling items, Branin said.
Relying on wild seafood can be challenging because of the varying consistency of fishing seasons for salmon and crab especially. For example, Copper River salmon, one of QFC’s top-selling items, saw one of its worst commercial fishing seasons in half a century, with record-breaking prices for the few fish that were available to consumers.
With low production for Copper River salmon and Dungeness crab this past year, QFC focused more on halibut and shrimp, Branin said.
Farmed vs. wild
One of the challenging aspects of working in the seafood industry in the United States is helping consumers understand that farm-raised seafood is not a worse alternative to wild when it isn’t available, according to Branin.
“There are so many misconceptions and misunderstandings about seafood,” he said, with negative views of farmed fish being one he hopes the industry can dispel through more education around the topic.
Branin, who has been with the Kroger brand for 24 years, started with the company bagging groceries in Houston, Texas. From there he moved on to working in the company’s seafood department, to cleaning meat saws and cutting meat, and he eventually moved up to seafood manager.
A degree in marketing from the University of Houston followed by enrolliment in a management training program helped propel him to a store management role.
Branin has previously served as a fresh and packaged category manager in the company’s Southwest division. He has also served as QFC’s corporate meat director, and has worked in various sustainability and seafood roles at the company’s Cincinnati, Ohio headquarters.