Hake fillet


 * This article is about the fish product "Hake fillet", for a general description of the fish and other uses see Hake

Hake fillet is a type of fish product made from hake which is largely used in Spanish cuisine. Hake has soft white flesh which makes it easy to fillet. During the production of hake fillet, there are three steps that are particularly followed by hake processing industries. Firstly the headed and gutted hake fish are defrosted. Secondly, the scales found on the hake are removed and finally they are graded and filleted.

After the production stage, the hake fillet is checked for blood, bones, fins, black membrane, fleas, loose fish scales, and sorted. It is then packed and kept frozen in order to achieve a product temperature of approximately -18°C.

Imports and exports of Hake fillet
Frozen hake fillet is the main product that is exported from Argentina. But due to the hectic situation that Argentinean companies are going through, export of hake fillet has been dropped by 3% and 22% in terms of volume and value respectively. The main importers of hake fillet for the year 2010 were Brazil (46%; volume and 46%; value) and United States followed by Italy. Imports of hake fillet to Brazil has significantly raised by +69% in volume and +38% in value. Despite of this growth, hake fillet is the only one that has shown a decrease in the volume of exports in Argentina.

The main importers of hake fillet from Uruguay are Italy, Russia, Germany, The Netherlands and France but recently exports from Uruguay have declined sharply due to the disaster that occurred in February.