Prompted by a reduced catch of nephrops, Rooney Fish of Northern Ireland began looking for ways to diversify its business. It landed on the idea of oysters and this year, the family-owned and managed processor began producing oysters under the Millbay Oysters brand.
Its Millbay Oysters are sourced from the company’s Pacific oyster farm located in Carlingford Lough. The bay is an ideal location for farming oysters, according to the company’s commercial director Andrew Rooney.
“We set up the oyster farm, which covers almost 19 hectares, in 2013, and invested in the necessary depuration and grading equipment,” Rooney said in a prepared statement.
Rooney Fish spent time consulting customers and conducting extensive market research to determine how best to diversify, and the new oysters, which are grown from seed from Rooney Fish’s farm, have already generated interest from his company's customer base, Rooney said.
“Our experience of this market and contacts there encouraged us to explore opportunities to supply oysters. We took a decision about a further diversification of our business about five years’ ago to start our own oyster farm at Millbay on Carlingford, which is one the cleanest stretches of water in the British Isles,” Rooney said.
Rooney Fish exports a wide range of shellfish out of Northern Ireland including nephrops, brown crab, brown crab claws, crab meat, brown crab snap claw, velvet crab, green crab, lobsters, whelks, scampi meat, soup products, scallops and more. Products from the supplier – which come either fresh, cooked, frozen or live – are exported to markets all over Europe as well as in Asia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong and beyond.
The company was established in 1975 and employs around 40 people.
