A recent evaluation of Seafood Scotland’s “Business Development and Value Added Support Program,” which took place between April 2011 and March 2013, showed that it had provided overwhelmingly positive support for Scottish seafood businesses.
The 2-year project resulted in 22 major new customers gained, 18 new products launched, and 6 certifications/accreditations achieved. Forty-eight full time and eight part time jobs were created, and 204 full time and 17 part time jobs were secured.
The European Commission, the Scottish Government via the European Fisheries Fund, Aberdeenshire Council and Highlands & Islands Enterprise cofunded the evaluation, with support from Seafish.
The project aimed to promote competitiveness and profitability in the Scottish seafood sector, develop new markets, maximize opportunities in existing markets, raise awareness of Scottish seafood to buyers, maximize efficiencies, reduce wastage and maximize the value of the catch.
“Seafood Scotland worked with 119 companies to offer business and market development support, market insight and intelligence, quality, environmental and technical support, and assistance in raising standards,” said Graham Young, head of Seafood Scotland. “The project was very successful and the results will help individual companies to continue the development of their businesses. The value of new sales generated by the program was just under GBP 4 million (USD 6.7 million, EUR 4.9 million).”
Participating businesses invested GBP 2.7 million (USD 4.5 million, EUR 3.3 million) of their own capital in delivering project activities.
“The support we received from the program was incredibly useful, as it enabled us to develop new and eye-catching multi-lingual packaging for some of our export retail customers. This packaging has been well received by these European customers and has helped us grow the business,” said Rob Mitchell, Scottish Shellfish Marketing Group commercial director.
“We gained MSC chain of custody certification, and put our management team through training on the MSC standard to ensure that the audit trail was properly in place in the factory,” said Derek Hutchings, Nolan Seafoods managing director. “We also gained valuable insight during the training on the wider aspects of sustainability, which has helped us to put across the right messages across to our buyers and suppliers.”
Due to the program’s success, an additional funding package has been put in place to offer support for Scottish seafood businesses through to March 2015.
