Five things for fish processors to know about POKE

Food, like clothing, trends in waves; the older we get, the more the dishes (and clothes) from our younger years seem to pop back up again, twisted, reimagined, elevated, yet basically the same. However, every now and then, a dish experiences less of a flash-in-the-pan rebirth and more of a slowly creeping infiltration of the global kitchen repertoire. Poke is one such dish. Its ability to facilitate every dietary requirement or personal taste, combined with being easy-to-make, has seen it move from Hawaii – its anecdotal birthplace – to supermarkets, high street franchises, restaurants and homes around the world. For fish processors this means opportunity.

Five things to know about Poke for fish processors:

1. Fast to make and healthy, Poke is the perfect dish for today’s time-poor population. First made popular in Hawaii in the 1970s, though probably existing in kitchens across the world for many years before hand, the ease of making Poke and its flexibility make it perfect for a booming global market opportunity in 2025.

2. Poke is highly customizable. Fish, meat, vegetables or vegetable proteins; cut them into cubes, add a marinate or sauce and put them on a bowl of rice, quinoa or other grain and you have a Poke bowl. Because Poke can be made using basically any ingredient to create a nutritious, delicious and (important for today’s marketing) Instagram-able meal, it is an easy opportunity for all food processors to meet a market need.

3. The small, diced cubes of Poke ingredients make it an ideal end-product for fish processors to maximize use of raw materials which would normally be waste, for example off-cuts of fish are ideal to dice into small cubes and maximize the use of a high-value product.

4. Supply a booming market. Poke bowl chains are popping up everywhere and supermarket shelves are filling up with precut Poke ingredients for a quick dinner at home. Someone needs to provide these businesses with consistently cut and flavored cubes to make delicious Poke that will keep their customers coming back.

5. Poke has been around for more than 50 years. The simplicity and flexibility of the dish made it popular before the influence of social media and cooking television. This is not a ‘flash in the pan’ fad, but a long-lasting market trend. Simple to make, tasty to eat, it is clear it will be a staple on tables for decades to come.