Surimi sensation: Singapore’s DoDo pursues diversification beyond fishballs with snacking products

05-Mar-2024 - Last updated on 05-Mar-2024 at 02:18 GMT

Dodo is looking to expand and diversify beyond its successful frozen foods business with the launch of its first surimi snacks range. ©Getty Images

Related tags Snacks Singapore

Singaporean surimi brand Dodo is looking to expand and diversify beyond its successful frozen foods business with the launch of its first surimi snacks range, which it believes has long-term mainstream potential.

DoDo, owned by Thong Siek Global, is best known for its fishballs, crabsticks and cheese tofu fish cakes, and the firm’s frozen foods business has almost half a century of history since beginning in 1976.

“All of our products are made from surimi and we have longstanding expertise in this area, and even with regard to snacks it is not completely out of the blue for us as we had been providing the surimi as ingredients to snacking firms during previous Chinese New Year festive seasons,” Thong Siek Global Senior Business Development Manager told FoodNavigator-Asia.

“So surimi snacks are always very popular during the festive season, and what we are looking to do is to make this into a more regular, mainstream snack.

“Instead of only supplying the surimi as an ingredient, we have now developed a line to make these into the snacks ourselves and make these available all year round, riding on the fact that consumers are already familiar with these products and do like them.

“This is in consideration of current market trends where ready-to-eat snacks are very popular and we want to diversify the business anyway so also want a product that is a long-term venture.”

The surimi snacks have been christened Crusty’s Crab Chips and were developed in four flavours: Original, Tom Yum, Mala and Truffle.

“We are also already exporting globally to the United States and Europe as well as China, and what we are really looking to do now is to identify that an area of uniqueness where we can stand out in the snacking market,” he added.

“The fact is that surimi as a frozen food has been around for a very long time, and as a segment alone the trends are pretty stagnant, so this is a way of also innovating with flavours and formats.

“Apart from the crabstick chips, we also have a range of the ever-popular fish skins as well as potato chips under the Crusty’s brand, all available in the same four flavours.”

Healthier innovations

New product development is also abound in the firm’s traditional frozen foods arm of the business, with a trend towards health and wellness.

“We are looking at the development of a new type of fish cocktail that targets consumers looking for a healthier option of such products,” he said.

“Our data shows that fish cocktails are very popular with young parents, but there remains some apprehension of possible high fat and preservatives content.

“So we are looking at developing a healthier version of this that has low-to-no content of these concerns, yet maintaining a similar taste and texture.”

This would be a product initially more targeted at the Asian market, but eventually hoped to enter western markets as well.

“Asian consumers are familiar with fishballs and would consider fish cocktails to be part of a mainstream segment,” he added.

“Western consumers are familiar with sausages but this would be quite a novel concept for them, and we would hope to push it as a healthy staple with good protein and no starch or carbohydrates to meet their local trends.

“Either way, we already have the equipment necessary to smoke these fish cocktails and get the flavours and textures right, even similar to that of pork or chicken products, so this could be a good selling point.”