Famous flakes go back on sale
The future of Salar Smokehouse looked grim for its employees after the salmon producing company Loch Duart Ltd decided to sell the facility in April.
However, it was then bought back by former production manager, Iain Macrury, who officially took over the premises on 3rd July and has since been frantically renovating and improving the smokehouse and developing packaging for the fish, retaining six of the employees in the process.
As he explained to Fish Farming Expert: “We’re a month ahead of our goal and the staff here have been amazing, they’ve put their backs into it, have worked extra hours with pride and passion and are continuing to do so.
“We’ve spend the last couple of months trying to improve the quality of our products – we’ve taken the hot-smoked flaky salmon recipe – which has long been a firm favourite of our customers – back to as close to the original as possible.
“We’ve also improved the recipe of our other product – flaky smoked salmon with honey and thyme. It’s now less salty, moister and has a stronger honey flavour.”
The first of the relaunched products were made available to the catering industry at the beginning of August, while retailers have been able to buy it since the end of that month, when the packaging was ready, and the online shop is also now fully up and running.
“We’re already selling 300kg a week, which is exceeding our target. We’ve generated new business, and there have been a number of the company’s old customers, who used to be regular customers before the [Loch Duart] takeover who have now come back to us. We’ve also had tremendous local support,” reflects the former chef.
And, despite being early days, Iain has high hopes for the continued development of the project.
“We’ve going to be including five varieties of the flaky salmon in a special Hebridean Hamper in the run-up to Christmas, which is also going to include 10 other products that have been made anywhere between Barra and Lewis,” he enthuses.
For more information see www.salarsmokehouse.co.uk
