U.K. consumers purchased about GBP 6 billion (EUR 7.6 billion; USD 9.5 billion) of seafood last year, up from GBP 5.6 billion (EUR 7.1 billion; USD 8.9 billion) two years ago and is continuing to grow. But while the country’s seafood processing industry is a major contributor to this growth, to a large extent its efforts are still slipping under the radar, claims a new industry film.
Produced by the U.K. Seafish Authority and aimed at raising the profile of the processing industry, “The Business of Processing” sets out to show regulators, retailers and consumers the opportunities and challenges that processors face in turning the seafood that is landed and imported into the country into end products. In particular, it explores the economic and market pressures that currently drive innovation in the industry.
The film confirms there is a declining trend in terms of the number of people employed within seafood processing, but emphasizes that while that number is falling together with the number of processing units in operation, the volume being produced has steadily increased over the years, which points to strong improvements in efficiency.
Preliminary data supplied to SeafoodSource by the U.K. Seafish Authority ahead of its next report on the country’s processing sector, due to be published in March 2015, finds that excluding salmon, there are 336 processing businesses this year deriving 50 percent or more of their turnover from seafood. In 2008, this number stood at 495, and going back 10 years to 2004, there were 573 seafood processing units.
In terms of employment, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs has dropped from 15,431 in 2008 to 14,318 today. In 2004, there were 18,200 FTE jobs.
| Year | 2008 | 2010 | 2012 | 2014 |
| No. of units | 495 | 391 | 342 | 336 |
| No. of FTE jobs | 15,431 | 14,661 | 14,637 | 14,318 |
| No. FTEs per unit | 31 | 37 | 43 | 43 |
(Preliminary data courtesy of UK Seafish Authority)
Northeast Scotland and the Humber region provide between two-thirds and three-quarters of the shore-based jobs in U.K. seafood. Concentrations of secondary processing units are also found in North and Southwest England as well as Wales.
The country’s seafood processing industry is broadly divided into two sectors – primary processing and value-addition. The seafood retail sector in the United Kingdom is largely dominated by the growing fresh category and the majority of those products continue to be processed in the country. Nevertheless, a lot of primary processing for the other category formats is traditionally conducted overseas – historically in Denmark using heavy duty filleting machinery but now mainly hand-filleted in the Far East.
As a result, the majority of U.K. processing jobs are in the conversion of raw materials into value-added formats. For example, all the fish fingers that Young’s Seafood supplies to the major retailers are produced in Grimsby, confirmed the group’s Technical and CSR Director, Mike Mitchell.
Attending a London preview showing of the film, Mitchell added that industry-wide, there has been significant investment in terms of automation, robotics and intelligent machinery to replace outdated and inefficient labor intensive filleting and packing processes.
Devon-based Paramount 21, which supplies frozen seafood products to the foodservice industry, is among the businesses featured in the film. Managing Director Ali Hannaford also stressed that the U.K. seafood processing sector is both innovative and creative but said that staying ahead of the game requires significant investment in product development, new equipment and training staff. Paramount 21 invests between GBP 250,000 (EUR 317,871; USD 396,376) and GBP 500,000 (EUR 635,746; USD 792,798) annually to achieve this end, she said.
“The Business of Processing” will be publicly released on Seafish’s YouTube channel on 1 December 2014.
