—which peers into the daily operations of a commercial fishing boat—sits at the core of his business.
"I would go to the grocery stores, and I'd go check out what they had," he said."They're selling Alaskan salmon, but it looks so bad—it looks so different from what I had in my freezer." The model works. In each of its first three years, Alaskan Seafood Company has sold out of all the fish they've caught. Their clientele includes Michelin-starred restaurants. And the business is growing, as Kyle has since partnered with “hundreds of fishermen” to expand their inventory, which now includes sablefish and halibut.
Kyle: Flash freezing is really important for seafood because the meat is very delicate. If you think back to elementary or middle school science, when things slowly freeze, it causes it to crystallize very large, which is what creates snowflakes. But when you flash-freeze it, you blast [the fish] down to negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit extremely fast. It doesn’t give the water molecules enough time to expand.
Your best bet is to talk to the fishmonger. Ask them about the flash freezing process. A lot of the fish that you see in grocery stores was once flash frozen, but then thawed out for display, and then potentially refrozen so it could last longer—this is where you start to see a significant drop in quality.