Fun Fish Fax
Did you know....

• Our catfish are U.S. farm-raised catfish from Tunica, Mississippi and Eudora, Arkansas.
• The catfish are fed all natural grains and proteins.
• We buy the whole filets and cut them into strips. Then they are breaded in cornmeal and fried in peanut oil. This "from scratch" method provides the freshest tasting fish for you.
• Fiddlers are the whole fish minus the head (and guts). You must debone it at your table. More work but it is the tastiest catfish meat to be found!
• Our catfish are Channel Catfish
• The record Channel Catfish was a 58 pounder caught in South Carolina.
• One to two meals of fish a week can cut the risk of sudden cardiac death in half.
• U.S. farm-raised catfish are the country's fifth most popular fish.
• Catfish is a lean fish and an excellent source of protein.
• More farm-raised catfish are produced a year than all other U.S. aquacultured species combined.

This story begins with the selection and mating of mature catfish, which remain in production an average of 12 years and each lay 3,000 to 4,000 eggs annually per pound of body weight. Once the eggs are laid and fertilized they are collected and taken to special hatcheries designed to replicate the natural environment. The eggs hatch after seven days and the young catfish are called "sac fry" because of the attached yolk sacs that supply their food.

As the food sacs are depleted the catfish begin to swim and are moved to special ponds where they grow into fingerlings. When the fingerlings are about 4 to 6 inches long (the size of an index finger) they are placed in catfish ponds.

Farm-raised catfish are raised in a quality controlled environment of clay-based ponds filled with pure fresh water pumped from underground wells. The average pond, constructed by building above ground levees to serve as natural barriers, is 10 to 20 land acres in area and 4 to 6 feet deep. Approximately 95 percent of the nation's farm-raised catfish are raised in Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana.

Farm-raised catfish are fed a purified high-protein floating food pellet ( a mixture of soybeans, corn wheat, vitamins, and minerals) produced by area feed mills. The specially formulated feed is one of the reasons for catfish's subtle taste and absence of "fishy" odor.

After 18 months, or when the fish reach about 1.5 pounds each, they are harvested with seines (large weighted nets) and loading baskets, then taken alive to processing plants in aerated trucks.

Once the catfish reach the plants, the whole production process takes less than 30 minutes, making U.S. farm-raised catfish among the freshest fish available. The catfish are cleaned, processed and placed on ice or frozen to temperatures of 40 degrees below zero using an individually quick-frozen (IQF) method that preserves the taste and quality of fish. Farm-raised catfish is then sold as whole fish steaks, filets, strips, and nuggets, as well as marinated and pre-breaded or pre-cooked in frozen dinners.