Young's moves Gastro into natural fish with sauce lines

Young’s Seafood is expanding its upmarket Gastro brand with the launch of a new Saucy Fish Co-style natural fish-and-sauce range.

The cook-in-bag frozen products can be oven baked or cooked in a microwave, and represent the Gastro brand’s first foray into the natural fish category, providing two individually wrapped portions of fish per pack accompanied by sauce portions.

Rolling out to all major multiples from this week, the range will consist of three SKUs initially: wild Alaskan salmon fillets with a sweet chilli and ginger sauce; prime cod loin with sundried tomato and roasted garlic sauce; and prime cod loin with a Sicilian lemon and herb sauce (rsp: £4 with £3 promotions).

Young’s is also adding three new flavours to its Gastro meals-for-one offering from this month, including a seafood paella with spicy cod patatas bravas (rsp: £2.49), and launching a Gastro-branded beer battered cod fillet (rsp: £4 for a pack of two), described by development chef Serge Nollent as a “really premium high-quality beer battered cod product” and the “next step” in growing the range.

Gastro value sales rose 29% to £23.9m during the past year, said Wayne Hudson, MD for Young’s frozen business [Nielsen 52 w/e 31 January 2015], with 51.4% of sales incremental to the category [Kantar Worldpanel 52 w/e 1 February].

With overall frozen seafood sales experiencing a 2.9% volume decline last year, Hudson said expanding Gastro was attracting “new shoppers to frozen food”. and would help position it as “a true power brand in its own right.”

The new product launches followed a spate of activity at the turn of the year by the Findus-owned business, as it sought to demonstrate “why frozen fish was so good”, said group CEO James Hill.

In January, Young’s launched its first TV ad since 2011 with the introduction of Malcolm, a “discerning foodie cat” voiced by actor Rupert Everett.

The supplier followed up last month with the announcement of a phased revamp of the Young’s masterbrand throughout 2015, drawing on the supplier’s Lincolnshire heritage by depicting Grimsby and its coastline.