One of the company’s initial products is herring. The herring is a diverse fish and that’s why we can produce it in a variety of ways depending on what smoking processes the fish goes through. We distinguish three main products: white, sweet and smoked herring.
Biology (Clupea harengus)
Like sprat and mackerel, herring is a pelagic fish that lives in big schools. They feed on shrimp, plankton and smaller fishes. Depending on the fat percentage, the age, the size and depending on if they contain spawn you can differentiate different types of herring. Blue Ocean Seafood uses big, full herring that still holds some spawn. These fish get caught around October and November and get frozen straight after.
Smoking
After pickling, we hang the herring on big smoking carts using skewers. This technique of smoking herring provides a way to hang the fish without them touching each other, this means that the smoke can completely surround the herring so you get an evenly smoked product. Once the herring are dry enough, we isolate our first product: white herring. Optionally the herring is smoked for another period of time resulting in the sweet herring, recognisable by its light brown colour. When the smoking process is intensified the resulting product is called brown herring. Brown herring is noticeably different by its golden brown colour and its salty flavour.
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In 2016 our white and sweet herring got officially recognised as regional product.
