Sealing the deal on a new delicacy

Seal meat is becoming a niche market in Quebec, but it may still be a while before Canadians in other provinces can purchase the delicacy at their butcher shops.

A handful of restaurants in Montreal have started offering seal on their menus in the past few years, showcasing it as rich and tasty gourmet meat. Despite the growing potential for its commercialization, the seal meat industry remains at the experimental stage in Quebec, and suppliers have yet to get federal accreditation to start exporting to other provinces.

The Côte à Côte butcher shop sells seal meat in the form of sausages, terrines, filets, cubes and roasts

Denis Longuépée is the president of the Magdalen Islands Sealers Association. He recently traveled to other provinces like Ontario and Nova Scotia, to get people to taste various seal meat products. He says these have been well received and that there is a growing demand for such products outside of Quebec.

“There are lots of people interested in our seal products, which can come in the form of seal pâtés, terrines, sausages etc. And there are still lots of other things we can do with seal meat,” Longuépée says.

Magdalen Islands is located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where about 30 per cent of Canada’s commercial seal hunt takes place. It’s also the home of Côte à Côte, a butchery shop that has been supplying seal meat to locals, tourists and Quebec restaurants for the past eight years.

According to its owner, Réjean Vigneau, it’s the only butcher shop in the province to sell seal.

“People react with curiosity first, and then they come back for more. Clients come from all over the province and they bring seal meat back home. There are more and more restaurants interested in adding it to their menu.”

Out of the 20,000 to 25,000 seals killed annually in the Magdalen Islands, Vigneau says his shop processes about 10 per cent, and the demand increases each year.

Strict rules

Despite this growing interest, both in Quebec and in other provinces, the seal meat industry remains marginal.

According to Vigneau, preparing seal meat for human consumption is a very complicated process and hunters must follow strict rules when it comes to handling the carcasses. He adds though that sealers are gradually being trained and sensitized to those practices. 

People react with curiosity first, and then they come back for more.

Seals are killed on the ice banks and not in a slaughterhouse, so provincial inspectors must inspect the seals one by one once they’re brought to a meat processing facility, explains Louison Bernatchez, a food inspection advisor for Quebec’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

If seal suppliers like Côte à Côte want to export to other provinces or countries, they then need to get a federal accreditation from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

According to a CFIA spokesperson, no such accreditations have been given out yet. One special exception was made for a load of seal meat from Côte à Côte that will be shipped to the parliamentary restaurant in Ottawa, where seal is expected to appear on the menu next month.  

Magdalen Islands sealer Longuépée says the butcher shop is in the process of getting a full accreditation from the federal government to export out of Quebec.

He explains commercializing seal meat in Canada would help maximize the use of seals already hunted for their fur. 

Revitalizing the industry

Most of the Atlantic seal hunt targets harp seals

In Canada, the federal government sets strict quotas each year for the number of animals that can be killed during the seal hunt. Most of the commercial hunt takes place on the East Coast and about 338,000 seals are killed annually. These are mostly harp seals, whose population is estimated at more then 5.5 million, three times larger then in 1970s.

Up to now, those seals have been mostly hunted for their fur. With the recent European Union ban on Canadian seal products, seal hunters in the East Coast may need to diversify their industry and find new markets for their catches.   

“There’s no doubt the [European ban] has had an impact,” says Clyde Jackman, Newfoundland’s Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. He explains the main impact on the seal industry has been the dropping price of seal pelts, an important source of income for many rural and aboriginal communities.

He says Newfoundlanders – who have been eating the marine mammal for years – have yet to export the animal’s meat to other provinces, but adds this is an option that could help their sealing industry.

“It’s something that we certainly might be looking at in the future. We’re always looking at opportunities where we can use the entire seal product.”

Optimizing the hunt

Benoit Lenglet, the French chef at Montreal’s restaurant Au Cinquième Péché, shares Jackman's philosophy. 

“There’s a lot of waste when seals are hunted for their skins. I think it’s important to commercialize the meat, to reduce this waste.”

Chef Benoit Lenglet prepares seal rillettes at his restaurant Au Cinquième Péché

Lenglet started experimenting with seal meat four years ago and it has now become the most popular item on his menu. He gets his seal from the Côte à Côte butchery shop, and says what he likes best about this kind of meat is that it's natural and comes from a sustainable hunt. 

“I know this is a delicate meat, with no hormones. And on the gourmet level, this is pretty lean meat, with a good game taste and slight hints of iodine that come from the algae. It’s very interesting.”

During the peak of the hunting season, in March and April, Lenglet serves fresh seal meat in the form of steaks and tartar. For the rest of the year, he serves it as deli in the form of smoked meat, jerky and sausages.

He says by marketing seal meat in his restaurant, he feels he's doing a service to the sealing culture in Canada and to the hunters whose livelihoods depend on the annual hunt.

“These are great people, and it’s too bad that they get treated as monsters once a year,” he adds, referring to animal activists who campaign each year against Canada’s seal hunt. 

Front page photo provided by Côte à Côte.