Loch Duart launches US sales operation
Sutherland and Uists salmon farmer Loch Duart has announced the appointment of James Scoon as its vice president for US sales.
Based in Boston, Scoon will lead the company’s newly opened US sales operation. The company, which produces around 6,000 tonnes of salmon annually, already has French and UK sales offices.
Scoon previously spent 16 years as operations manager for Black Pearl Seafood, a high-end seafood company that suspended trading in September.
The company imported Scottish salmon to the US and exported scallops to Europe. It also sold wild salmon.
“I'm really proud to be working with the renowned Loch Duart brand,” said Scoon. “Customer interest has been great, although many of my contacts are waiting for food services to return to operation before ordering significant volumes. Meanwhile we are pressing forward into the retail sector and getting great traction and interest in the exceptional quality of Loch Duart salmon.”
Investment and growth
Loch Duart was bought by US-based sustainable investor Vision Ridge Partners a year ago. Since then, Loch Duart has bought a mothballed processing factory in Dingwall previously owned by the now-defunct Edinburgh Salmon Company, and has been named as one of the London Stock Exchange Group’s 1,000 Companies to Inspire Britain.
It is due to take delivery of a Scale AQ hybrid feed barge combining battery and diesel power in the spring, and it unveiled new branding in January.
“While we continue to farm in the same small scale, low impact way we did when we started 21 years ago, our new branding reflects just how far Loch Duart has grown to become an independent producer of quality, Scottish farmed salmon, which truly is unrivalled,” the company stated on its website.
