ESTONIA
Product innovation à la Hiiumaa, a small Estonian island
Chocolate-coated fish create waves
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These were existing products that were sold as fish chips by the company. After trying different species, the selection was narrowed down to two—pike and ide. Bass would have probably worked as well, but the two selected species are more reliably available from the sea. It was decided to make dark chocolate with pieces of ide fillet and light caramel chocolate with peanuts and pieces of pike fillet. It was a good idea to offer a choice of light or dark chocolate, because people often end up buying both.
So, a chocolate specialist was found, and experiments began with various dried fish fillets.
Cutting the fish fillets turned out to be a real challenge, as initial tests showed that neither meat mincers
nor food processors were suitable for the extremely fibrous and tough material. As a result, the fillets are chopped into half millimetrecubes manually. The volumes are fortunately not yet large enough to make the job impossible. As one would expect, the main target group for the product are tourists and the chocolate is often bought as an emotional purchase. The fun packaging with images of fish designed by a local artist has certainly also helped to turn the product into something that the locals like to take with them as a gift when visiting others. One thing is certain – saying “fish chocolate” never fails to provoke a
reaction —and not always one that is positive. The controversy the product generates has provided an excellent opportunity to advertise it on the Estonian national TV channel. In addition, it was the second most popular product after mulled wine at the Tallinn Christmas market. The reactions of people of different nationalities were also tested at a conference in Brussels, where the French appeared the most puzzled by the combination of flavours. No one was surprised when the fish chocolate reached French television after that. It looks like the product already has a life of its own. Tuuli Tammla Tuuli Tammla
tonefish is a small familyowned fisheries business on the island of Hiiumaa in the Baltic Sea. A few years ago, the company established its own production plant and retail store with the assistance of the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund 2014-2020. The company was using its catch to make products with traditional flavours, until one day the manager returned from vacation with samples of cheese chocolate. This raised the question – if there is cheese chocolate why not fish chocolate?
Small cubes of dried fish coated in chocolate have proved to be controversial enough to generate lots of free publicity.
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