Firda, Northern Netherlands’ vocational training provider organizes an annual competition in which outstanding students, projects, etc. are awarded the title Firda’s Finest. In the projects category this year, this fun Seafood project was nominated!
Lecturers Jos Veenema and Auke van Slooten and the four students Lydia Wezelman, Teunis van Slooten, Jelle Jacob Hoefnagel and Marius van den Heuvel came up with a fish snack as an alternative to the party bitterball during a real Hackaton.
How do you get people to eat more fish? The student team looked nearby and developed the idea for their own Northsea snack into a tasty fish ball including packaging for the supermarket. They made it from fresh plaice, this time. But whiting or lots of other fish can do just as well, they told me. And a party mix of all kinds of fish can therefore become a new classic at a party, alongside all the – now somewhat boring – other appetizers.
The snack is inexpensive to make. By using fish of the season and less popular bycatch, the product is sustainable by reducing waste and also commercially interesting. “And real fish is also healthier than the average bitterball,” the students said.
As a by-product of the Hackathon, held in December, links between Dutch and Spanish young fishermen and their teachers were also established and strengthened. That tastes like more, just like the Northsea snack from Urk.
