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FRANKFORT, Ky. — As the Lenten season approaches, Kentuckians looking for fresh, high-quality seafood can find it right here at home.
“Seafood is one of the fastest-growing sectors of Kentucky agriculture,” Commissioner Richie Farmer said. “Kentucky producers are raising catfish, prawns, tilapia, paddlefish, trout and many other species. When you buy Kentucky Proud foods, you know they have traveled a short distance from the farm to your grocer.”
That’s important for seafood. Fish are susceptible to more deterioration, even frozen, than any other meat product, Kentucky aquaculture experts say.
Kentucky consumers have many choices for seafood products raised in the Commonwealth.
Shuckman’s Fish Company and Smokery in Louisville has been getting national attention for its Kentucky caviar, but it also offers alder smoked salmon, smoked Kentucky catfish and Kentucky rainbow trout, and other seafood products. Shuckman’s is working with Southeast Community and Technical College in Harlan to develop rainbow trout production in waters from abandoned coal mines. Shuckman’s is one of two businesses recently honored with Innovations in Agriculture awards at the Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy annual meeting.
Gone Fishin is a processing plant, retail fish market and restaurant in Morgantown. The plant processes catfish, prawns and frogs. It supplies area Houchen’s Markets as well as its own store and restaurant. Gone Fishin buys from several Butler County producers.
FishMarket Seafood is a wholesale distributor of fresh, frozen, live and value-added seafood products. The Louisville business supplies Kentucky Proud shrimp to Kroger stores in Kentucky and is exploring non-seafood Kentucky Proud products.
Bluefin Seafoods of Louisville supplies restaurants with locally raised striped hybrid bass.
Our Best Catch, a fish processing plant in Graves County, produces local farm-raised, mercury-free fish raised without the use of antibiotics, steroids, hormones or pesticides. Our Best Catch sells its products over the Internet and at selected outlets in western Kentucky and Tennessee.
For a list of Kentucky fish producers, go to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Web site, www.kyagr.com; click on the Kentucky Proud Country Store icon, and click on Seafood.
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