Funky Fish range

Young’s Seafood’s Funky Fish Kitchen looks to have reached the end of the line after Asda delisted the brand amid a wider overhaul of its seafood and ready meals offer.

The Funky Fish Kitchen was launched exclusively in Asda by Young’s as a chilled range of ready-to-cook and ready-to eat seafood products in 2013. It followed the success of added-value offerings such as Icelandic Seachill’s Saucy Fish Co and Tesco’s now defunct Fish in a Flash own label brand.

It hit more than £7m in value sales during its first six months in Asda, and was later bolstered by the introduction of a spate of new lines, including a first pastry-based product in March 2015.

This was followed by the brand’s first venture into frozen fish in September 2015 with the launch of nine new lines including cod fish fingers in a smokey Cajun breadcrumb, fishcakes and various fish fillets with sauce. Young’s later added seafood-based ready meals to the lineup, including fish macaroni cheese and fish risotto.

However, the brand will now disappear from shelves as the retailer ramps up its focus on own label, Young’s confirmed.

Asda has undertaken a major revamp of its frozen and chilled ready meals lineup since the end of May, with four Funky Fish meals among those de-listed to make more space for new own-label lines.

Funky Fish products were also among 23 frozen fish lines delisted by Asda at the end of June, with a raft of Birds Eye, own label and Young’s products also pulled from freezers. They have been replaced by 19 new products during the past fortnight, with a marked increase in the presence of own label [Brandview].

A Young’s Seafood spokeswoman confirmed the Funky Fish range had now been delisted in Asda, but declined to comment on whether the brand would be revived elsewhere.

She stressed the brand had been “successful in pioneering innovation, new recipes and formats in chilled and frozen fish”, and said Young’s would “continue to focus on supporting Asda” to grow its seafood categories “by bringing younger shoppers to the category” through the supermarket’s own-label range.