What
is CLEARSMOKE®,
Other than a fish smoking technology owned by the Anova
Food Group
based out of Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands and having
offices in
Atlanta,
Georgia, Kenya, Indonesia, Vietnam and France.
Let's start out by telling you what it isn't.
Story
by: Ellen Walsh
Advancements
in Today's Seafood Industry
It
isn't super-purified smoke, tasteless smoke, filtered
wood smoke, industrial CO (Carbon Monoxide)
or commercially mixed Carbon Monoxide gas. CLEARSMOKE®
starts out as one ingredient: hickory wood chips. These
chips are processed through the CLEARSMOKE®
smoke generation system
removing all particulate components of the smoke
(ash, tar flavor/odor and anything larger than 1 micron).
No additives, preservatives or chemicals of any kind
are used in this process. What's left are the naturally
occurring preservation gases and standard phenolic compounds
present in all natural woodsmoke.
For
chefs and discriminating foodies” concerned with
the best seafood that they can trust on a consistent
basis, the CLEARSMOKE®
technology opens a new
door.
This
process will make the seafood you serve retain the look,
taste, texture and color of fresh even through freezing
and defrosting. Shrinkage on tuna at retail is reduced
from 35% to 3%. The process improves the texture of
the product so it looks re-freshed after thawing. Histamine
forming and spoilage bacteria that flourish in fresh
seafood transportation are virtually eliminated by the
process and completely static in frozen transit.
Profit.
And last but certainly not least you are offering a
product comparable to fresh but at a similar or lower
price.
Anova Food Group,
holder of the
CLEARSMOKE®
Technology patent, imports 750 metric
tons of fish a year from processing plants throughout
the world utilizing the CLEARSMOKE®
technology. While fish enters the retail market place
clearly labeled with the CLEARSMOKE®
brand, the fish reaches
the consumer as an unbranded product. Although foodservice
buyers and suppliers choose product produced this way
because of its outstanding consistency and safety features,
very little is known about this process by the professional
chef as well as the consumer.
Discriminating
seafood purveyors have always had to distinguish between
the best of fresh fish, and a high quality frozen fish.
As educated food professionals and consumers, we are
looking for the best seafood that money can buy. We
say we want fresh, however there is a global transportation
issue. Under the best of circumstances, fresh seafood
caught in foreign waters takes almost 14 days to reach
your plate. Maybe less time if caught off American shores
for the American market.
Anova
Food Group, works
with seafood processors globally through licensing agreements
for their CLEARSMOKE®
Technology. This
insures speedy delivery from ocean to plant where the
fish is “Clearsmoked”, quick frozen, and
then transported to the United States, the EU and other
international markets.
CLEARSMOKE®
does not put the fish in a “processed”category
as opposed to the fresh” category. CLEARSMOKE®
is not an additive. While wholly understood by the EU
market as a smoking process and subsequently approved
for European distribution, buyers in the United States
are still struggling to distinguish the differences
of what the CLEARSMOKE®
technology
has to offer chefs and consumers from the unscrupulous
activities of processors who are utilizing straight
Carbon Monoxide.
Let's
look at this Scientifically.
Hickory
trees grown in the state of Tennessee are cut into chips.
No additives, preservatives or chemicals are ever added.
Smoke is generated by burning the chips. This smoke
passes through a primary filter which removes all of
the particulate; ash, tar and anything larger than one
micron. This is a passive form of filtration that does
not concentrate or chemically alter the natural composition
of the smoke. A secondary filter reduces, but does not
completely eliminate, the odor and color components
of the smoke, leaving the all important preservation
gasses” intact. The “smoke” is accumulated
and then applied directly to the product. The product
is removed from the smoke chamber, quickly bathed in
ozonated water to remove any residual smoke odor and
further eliminate bacteria, then frozen at zero degrees,
leaving a pure unadulterated product.
When
you barbecue with wood and throw a T-Bone Steak on the
grill, the smoke contains, among many things, carbon
monoxide and carbon dioxide. You may recall the earth
shaking experiments of the 80s when this made big news.
Scientists grilled steaks to prove the presence of Carbon
Monoxide –and then, upon conclusion of the experiment,
they ate the steaks, every one of them.
Carbon
Monoxide, in the low concentrations found in the preservation
gasses of CLEARSMOKE®
locks in the color because
it is a receptor, but only for a limited amount of time.
The rest of the Carbon Monoxide dissipates, as the carbon
molecule has done its job. Eventually, even that color
will diminish as the fish ages, and the natural course
of degradation continues.
Industrial
Carbon Monoxide or highly concentrated Carbon Monoxide,
is dangerous because the color never decreases even
as the quality of the product does, thus raising serious
food safety issues.
The use of industrial Carbon Monoxide, while banned
in the EU has been able to happen as a result of a loophole
in the law. Whereas Carbon Monoxide is legal since it
is a component of a GRAS (generally regarded as
safe) substance, wood smoke, and therefore has
a place on the product's label, unscrupulous seafood
suppliers who wish to take a cheaper and quicker route,
are dousing seafood with high levels of carbon monoxide,
thus hiding serious defects in the fish from unsuspecting
consumers and inspectors as well!
In
a world where news is reported in sound bites, this
has caused a serious misunderstanding as to the role
Carbon Monoxide plays in this whole process, resulting
in out of hand rejection of smoked products in places
where the product could be of great value.
Plans
are currently in place by Anova
Food Group to
educate chefs as to the nature of the process, and how
to incorporate its usage into their demanding agenda
of providing the best quality seafood to a demanding
and well educated foodservice professional and home
entertainer.
Anova
Food Group takes the
preservation of seafood to still another step by importing
the CLEARSMOKE®
fish as frozen (unless
requested as fresh). And the reason is that freezing
tuna and other species for 30 days kills the parasites.
There are more parasites in salmon and snapper, but
the end result is the same –freezing fish for
at least 30 days kills most of the bacteria and all
of the parasites in the fish, plus substantially reduces
the histamine growth environment, so dangerous to fish
consumption.
Does
this make it undesirable to demanding markets? Even
in Tokyo's Tsukiji Central Fish Market, the biggest
fish auction of its kind, the frozen fish section is
five times the size of the fresh section. The rising
popularity of sushi bars requires a consistent product.
It is an accepted fact in the seafood industry that
consistency and safety of sushi requires the use of
frozen product. The state of South Carolina has required
that in order to serve raw fish, it has to have been
frozen for thirty days. It remains to be seen if other
states will require it, but it is definitely being utilized.
CLEARSMOKE®
is the clear choice for keeping seafood
fresh tasting, great looking, extending shelf life,
eliminating bacteria and risk and increasing profit
and your customer's dining pleasure.
Other
Great Links:
Ahi
Cones
by Chef James Ormsby
Anovafood.net
Anova
Food Group Story PDF