Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 20, 1991 TAG: 9102200259
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: JUDITH SCHWAB/ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
The nose knows that crab scraps just don't keep well.
Virginia Tech's agricultural focus creates a good climate for the research Flick is doing. It just doesn't happen to be close to a marine environment, so he's learned to travel a lot.
Flick is looking into ways to improve the processing of seafood, alternative uses for scraps left from processing, improving seafood marketing and examining micro-organisms in seafood that are harmful to susceptible consumers.
Flick, 50, has been running back and forth to the bay for 22 years, a 600-mile trip that involves starting at 5 or 6 a.m. and returning sometime after 10 p.m. - often in the single-digit morning hours.
He or a member of his staff makes the trip seven or eight times a month these days, averaging 1,000 to 1,500 miles a week on state cars from Tech's motor pool.
"All the disasters [at home] happen when you're out of town," he said, citing, for two examples, one of his children being involved in a minor car accident and a decision to have the family cat put to sleep.
Flick and his wife Charlene, a nurse at Radford Community Hospital, have three children, one a college graduate and two still in high school.
His Tech office suggests man on the run even when he's not. The place is stuffed with books, papers and phone messages that spill onto the floor and out into the hall, where more is piled up in boxes labeled "Fresh Oysters."
A framed needlework depicting the waterfront hangs askew beside his desk. The Bacteriological Analytical Manual, Multilingual Dictionary of Fish and Fish Products, and books on engineered seafood such as Surimi, that fake crabmeat, line his shelves to the ceiling.
His phone conversation is peppered with a mix of scientific and bureaucratic terminology - lipids, surfactants, compounds, USDA, FDA, EPA, and the inevitable FAX.
Flick is considered a seafood expert and has worked in Japan, an island nation dependent on seafood. Yes, he does eat suchi, the raw fish, but he selects morsels he knows were caught in relatively clean waters.
He has been helping Virginia's seafood industry with his research in a variety of ways, including improved computer-assisted record keeping and videotaped training films.
Flick and his students have created a training course in Hampton that includes real-life experiences, such as going out on fishing boats to find out just how the animals are harvested and visiting processing plants.
"Fish Tech," the participants call it.
Flick says the seafood industry needs all the help it can get because profits are not very high. All this assistance is free as part of the Virginia Tech Sea Grant Program.
The plant that sells to a wholesaler may make a profit of 1 percent or less, Flick said. Seafood passes through a lot of hands, starting from the fishing boat, moving to the processor, the broker, the distributor, the retailer or restaurant, and finally the consumer.
Flick says the consumer benefits from the low profit margins.
"This is a big country, where you take lobsters from Maine to Arizona, and everyone wants fresh food," he said. "American consumers want quality but they don't want to pay for it - they always ask for the price first."
Two-thirds or our seafood is imported, Flick said. Oil is our No 1 import; cars come second and seafood is third.
"Aquaculture is changing some of that," he said. But it's hard to compete with a pay rate of $30 a month for harvesting crabs in China.
Although much of his research must be done in the processing plants at the bay, Flick's employees and graduate students also work in the labs at Tech. A tour of the facilities is like a walk through a miniature factory, with plenty of stainless-steel contraptions to marvel at.
In what appears to be a large spray drier - you have to climb a small ladder to reach the interior - Flick's workers conducted a project that produced a clam flavoring used in clam chowder and stuffings.
The crab scraps that need to be brought back from the bay quickly are byproducts that could be useful. Right now most of them are wasted, although some are dried for poultry food, Flick said.
In another area of the lab, Flick pointed out a small walled-off section with a large lock on the door. The tiny room contains a pulse electromagnetic wave producer that uses 5 million watts - hence the lock on the door. These waves are used to extend shelf life by destroying bacteria right before or after packing the food.
In a more conventional-looking laboratory, graduate student Jhung-Won Colby works in a litter of apparatus and oysters. She is studying the attachment of pathogenic bacteria to shellfish.
Leopoldo Enriquez studies spoilage in fish, and what can and cannot be controlled in various species. By knowing what the animal does naturally, processors can set more realistic goals for their product.
In another part of the building, tasters are sometimes brought in to sit in little booth-like spaces and taste the foods presented to them through a door in the wall in front of them. Some tasters can taste differences in the same species of fish from three different states, Flick said.
One thing the consumer should be aware of is substitution in processed products - shredded crab meat for lump crab meat, for instance. The seafood industry and consumers have requested research in economic fraud in the seafood industry.
Flick is looking into it.
He's starting his car. He's headed east.
There he goes.\
by CNB