1978 Birds Eye Fish Fingers

In the United Kingdom in the 1930s, most of the herring catch was pickled and exported to other Northern European countries. In an attempt to make herring more appealing on the home market, companies tried to present it in a new way, creating herring fish fingers called “herring savouries” and were tested on the market against a bland control product of cod sticks, sold as “fish fingers.” Shoppers in Southampton and South Wales, where the test was conducted, confounded expectations by showing an overwhelming preference for the cod. Cod fish fingers were first produced in Great Yarmouth,^[1] and introduced in Britain on 26 September 1955.

In 1953, the American company Gorton-Pew Fisheries, now known as Gorton’s, was the first company to introduce a frozen ready-to-cook fish finger, named Gorton’s Fish Sticks, which won the Parents Magazine Seal of Approval.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia