Seafood dishes still have the power to hook American consumers, even as inflation lingers.
Over the summer, U.S. consumers made their way back to restaurants in earnest, eyeing menus for specific fare, according to Mike Kostyo, author of the “Midyear Trends Report” released recently by foodservice research and consulting firm Datassential.
“Seafood dishes – along with premium meats – are among the highest-scoring options for draw, meaning consumers would visit the restaurant just for that item,” Kostyo said in late August.
This is hardly surprising considering that, “during the height of the pandemic, consumers told us that seafood was one of the foods they missed from restaurants most,” Kostyo explained.
“Now, it seems like they [consumers] may be indulging in their favorite seafood options, as the number of seafood chains that broke into the Top 500 grew 37.5 percent this year,” he added.
While center-of-the-plate classics like shrimp and salmon have continued to top order tickets at foodservice in the U.S., new adventurous seafood items are also attracting consumer interest. Fish skin, for one, has recently cropped up on Datassential’s Menu Adoption Cycle, a trend tracker that follows new foods through inception, adoption, proliferation, and ubiquity, per Kostyo…