Promoting Eel by Developing New Products

Les Trésors du fleuve inc.: A solution to the decrease in demand for eel in Europe―and a means for making this delicious fish better known. Josée Malenfant and Simon Beaulieu explain.

Josée Malenfant and Simon Beaulieu are sitting on a couch facing the camera and take turns talking.

[Simon Beaulieu] Often, people used to ask us: “Is there any eel available in the region”? “Is there any way that we can get some to eat?”

We couldn’t supply any. We didn’t have any. We’ve always sold live eels.

That’s when, in 2010, while talking with Josée and Rémi Hudon, another fisher. He fishes next to us and is also a friend.

Photo of Rémi Hudon standing next to a collecting box in an eel weir. He is holding up a saillebarde containing an eel.

That’s when we said: Why don’t we process eels and market the products ourselves?

Image of the logo or visual identity of Les Trésors du fleuve inc., consisting of a stylized eel weir and a sunset as well as the company’s name.

In 2010, we formed the company Les Trésors du fleuve, which actually processes eels. Each of us fishes eel on our own. We fish ours and Rémi fishes his. We sell it to Les Trésors du fleuve, which we also own but which is another outfit that processes eel into different products.

Josée Malenfant and Simon Beaulieu are sitting on a couch facing the camera and take turns talking.

We’re lucky to have access in our region to a business incubator, the Centre de développement bioalimentaire du Québec, or the CDBQ, which offers ITA courses in food processing. They do research and develop new products. We worked with them to develop our products.

[Interviewer] You always process fresh eel. What do you make with it? There must have been a first product. What was it?

[Josée Malenfant] Our first product was smoked eel. That’s what we wanted to make and, together with the CDBQ, we found the right recipe for the brine and the cooking time. The following year, we decided to make sausages. People had been asking us: “How do you make a complete meal out of this?” “How many different ways can you eat it?” And people asked us for recipes, old recipes.

Colour photograph of chef Jean Soulard and fisher Simon Beaulieu with their arms around each other’s shoulders. They are wearing boot-foot waders and are standing in front of a weir. The river is in the background.

[S.B.] We’ve really worked with old recipes and recipes that chefs have given us. For example, we make eel with orange peel. [Recipe by Jean Soulard] We’ve cooked it and we’ve made it into sausages for the sake of convenience. It’s sold in a cooking pouch so that people just have to cook it in boiling water and then grill it afterwards.

With all of these products, we use the entire eel and don’t waste a thing.

Josée Malenfant and Simon Beaulieu are sitting on a couch facing the camera and take turns talking.

Because of the way an eel is shaped, there’s a small section near the tail that isn’t very good for smoking. Therefore, we use it to make fish terrine or sausages. We don’t waste anything and make maximum use of all the eels we catch.