Tom Katz was scrambling for a cover story.
The Burlington fish broker faced tough questions from executives at T.G.I. Friday’s. Why was the grouper they received from Katz rubbery and pink, rather than the typical firm, white fish?
Katz had worked months cultivating a relationship with the popular restaurant chain and was closing in on a grouper deal worth more than $3 million that would make Friday’s one of his top customers. Bad fish would kill it.
When one Friday’s executive e-mailed the unthinkable – perhaps the fish was not grouper at all – Katz offered a string of excuses: Cold water could have turned it pink. Or maybe it was the fish feed. Perhaps the grouper bled internally.
Persuaded by the affable salesman’s pitch, the chain featured Katz’s fish at more than 500 of its restaurants, serving it with roasted vegetables and a citrus splash.
But the Friday’s executive was right: It wasn’t grouper. Customers were actually eating an inexpensive, lower-quality Vietnamese catfish reared in thickly packed Mekong River delta fish farms. And, according to federal court records, Katz apparently knew it.
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