-By Michael F. Bavota

How well has your seafood department fared in this challenging economic crunch? That might be a question with a sobering answer, but there's still time to maximize sales and profits for the department in the most crucial period of the selling year: fourth quarter and holiday time. How well you plan now for seafood department performance during the holidays will make the difference between New Year's cheers and the dead-of-winter blues.

A quick review of the calendar shows about 10 weeks left until the kickoff of the Thanksgiving feast, and although seafood plays only a minor role in this holiday, excluding cocktail shrimp, the reality is that after the turkey has been eaten, there are only five ads left in the year.

You should now build a timeline, and map out which seafood items will give you the best sales. While the biggest shrimp sales happen in December, Thanksgiving is a great time to start telling your customers about the variety of shrimp you offer and the party platters you have in stock. This is all to plant the seed for Christmas and New Year's.

Keep in mind that office parties are being planned now, so the more information you make available now, the more your name is out there. Holiday brochures should be on your seafood counters no later than Halloween.

The average American ate 16.3 pounds of fish and shellfish in 2007, according to the NOAA's Fisheries Service. This represents a 1 percent decline from 2006. Americans consumed a total of 4.908 billion pounds of seafood in 2007, and the nation is ranked the third-largest consumer of fish and shellfish, behind China and Japan.

But guess what? Shrimp remains the top choice for seafood in the United States, with an average 4.1 pounds consumed per person. The key to maximizing your share of holiday shrimp sales is to get shrimp on the minds of all of your customers, many weeks before the big event. When they shop your fresh seafood counter --  or even merely pass by it -- they must see an outstanding display of shrimp now.

Party on a platter

Keep in mind that you need to offer cocktail shrimp in a variety of sizes and price ranges. While some customers are quite comfortable cooking, peeling, and deveining shrimp in their home, others prefer the extreme opposite, a cooked shrimp platter ready to go. It's a time when people are thinking of gifts and open houses, so let shoppers know that an unexpected shrimp platter added to a party makes a great present.

Here are a few shrimp platter component guidelines:

Small home and office parties: Offer platters consisting of two to three pounds of shrimp with sauce (serves four to six people). Large home and office parties: Offer platters consisting of four to five pounds of shrimp with sauce (serves 12 to 15 people).
You can also price your shrimp on a price-per-pound basis, and then customize platters based on the number of guests attending a party. Figure on about 10 shrimps per person.
In addition to shrimp platters, consider combination platters consisting of shrimp and crab or shrimp, crab, salads, and dips.

Something for everyone

Shrimp and crab aren't the only seafood items in demand during the holidays. There are many traditional ethnic fish items you'll want to have on hand as well, depending on the makeup of your consumer base. These might include squid (calamari), octopus (pulpo), cuttlefish (sepia), mussels (cozze), fresh and smoked eels, salted cod (baccala), smoked chubs, kippers, nova lox, conch (scungili), lobster tails, pickled and creamed herring, and gefilte fish (poached fish patties or balls made from a mixture of ground deboned fish, mostly carp).

Remember that when offering anything kosher, specific rules and requirements apply. Only species that have fins and scales are eligible to be kosher. For a list of acceptable species, visit www.kashrut.com, which includes a list published by the Orthodox Union in its Kosher Guide.

Meticulous advance planning should enable you to turn the holiday season into a seafood smash hit, even with the current pressures on the economy.

Be sure to have a pre-holiday staff meeting and remind everyone that in addition to the holiday period being very busy, customers are shopping for gifts, and time is precious. Your customers are counting on you to help make the season bright. Be courteous, be helpful, be kind and ask questions, and take good notes, so that you can meet and exceed their expectations.