Seafood Key Terms

Understanding common and uncommon seafood terms makes your business easier and more profitable

When buying wholesale seafood, imagine perusing a seafood distributor's website only to bump into terminology that's foreign to you. Even if you have a great grasp of seafood products, this can easily happen. Seafood wholesalers use a wide variety of terms, some common and others uncommon. Each is designed to make your job of buying fresh seafood easier; but if you don't understand such terms, the opposite will occur. Worse, you may end up buying seafood that's not of the quality or type you need.

Learning seafood key terms is the way to begin when trying to educate yourself about seafood company jargon. To aid you in your quest for seafood information, try to break down terms into basic categories. For example, consider these possibilities:

1. Does the term refer to type of fish or seafood?

2. Does it apply to cooking seafood?

3. Or is it a seafood term used for some other purpose?

 

Understand terms related to cut used by seafood wholesalers

Although some terminology used to describe seafood cuts may seem obvious ("whole" refers to a whole fish, for example), others may not be so clear. For example, "GG" means a whole fish with the gut removed, "HG" refers to a whole body of fish that's gutted with the head cut off, "butterfly" means the fish still has its head but has been gutted and split, and "butterfly fillets" are gutted, headless fish that have been split.
Try: CookeryOnline.com offers a comprehensive, illustrated glossary to seafood cuts, while Mures Tasmania provides a short list of terminology wholesalers may use to describe cuts.

Learn about fish types offered by fresh fish suppliers

Even if you think you know your fish, it's a good idea to review a glossary of fish types. And when you run across a fish name that's unfamiliar, it's vital to the quality of your food business to do some research into what you may be buying.
Try: For an excellent, illustrated glossary of seafood types, see THE NIBBLE. Here, you'll see photographs and read entries on just about any type of seafood you can imagine, from abalone to whiting. Gorton's of Gloucester also offers a seafood glossary that includes tips on how to buy and prepare various types of seafood.

Look up miscellaneous terms used by fish importers and wholesalers

Seafood is a vast industry, so it wouldn't be surprising if you run across terms not related to type or cut. You may already know that "aquaculture" refers to cultivating and regulating fish on farms, but you may not know that "belly burn" is when a fish's rib bones poke into its belly, often indicating the fish wasn't fresh when processed.
Try: Anthony's Seafood offers a great glossary of seafood terms that are difficult to find elsewhere. Blue Marlin Seafood also has a good seafood glossary.

 

• When working with seafood distributors, you may find yourself confused about the difference between "filet" and "fillet." They actually mean the same thing. ("Filet" is the French spelling.) A filet or fillet is a fish slice that's irregular in size and is usually 2 to 12 oz.

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