‘Rock ‘n’ roll salmon’ producer to bid for Pinneys within a week
The owner of Annan salmon smoker St James Smokehouse has said he will put in a bid for the Pinneys of Scotland factory in the town by next Friday.
Brendan Maher has already had a detailed look inside the factory, which owner Young’s Seafood intends to close with the loss of 450 jobs.
If his bid is successful he will re-employ up to 100 people in the part of the Pinneys factory currently dedicated to smoked salmon. The remaining parts of the factory, used for producing other salmon-based products such as ready meals, will initially be mothballed.
A successful bid would also spell the end of Maher’s plans to expand the St James Smokehouse production to a site in Gretna, as the Pinneys site would take care of his production requirements.
“We are going to do a valuation next Monday / Tuesday, figure out what we want to pay and then make a formal offer, before close of business next Friday, then see what they have to say,” said Maher, who describes his company’s multi-award-winning product as “rock ‘n’ roll smoked salmon”.
Asked if he expected competition for the site, he said: “There have been several people that have looked around the site. Do I think there’s going to be a bidding war? Hopefully not. I don’t think there’s going to be 10 parties trying to outbid each other.
“I think that we’re the perfect fit, but it all comes down to price,” said Maher, speaking at the Seafood Expo Global in Brussels, where St James Smokehouse was part of the Scottish Pavilion.
Perfect fit
“We’re doing exactly the same product in exactly the same town. Our factory manager here used to work for Pinneys in Cairnryan for 17 years; he’s been with me for 12 years. So, we’re a perfect fit but it all comes down ultimately to price. Pinneys have a responsibility to command the best price they can get for the building.
“The Scottish Government has a focus on trying to retain as many of those 450 jobs as possible. We will obviously retain some of that workforce but to be transparent and honest, 450 people? No. It’s not achievable. I run businesses that are profitable. We’ve been going 15 years and been profitable every single year. I don’t get out of bed unless I make money. That’s not me. It’s got to be rock ‘n’ roll smoked salmon but whilst making money – that’s probably our mission statement.
“Pinneys do ready to cook products for M&S, ready to eat products, pates, terrines, cod with new potatoes and asparagus, etc, and they do a really good job, but it is possible to do a really good job, deliver a really good product that’s consistent, and make money.”
Maher, who spends 60% of his time at his home in Miami, where he also has a factory, added: “Initially we’ll concentrate solely on the pre-existing hot smoked salmon, cold smoked salmon area of the factory, so we would mothball or decommission the ready-to-cook value-added stuff. It’s not what I’ve got a wealth of experience in. As a one-trick pony, we would focus on doing the world’s most award-winning smoked salmon profitably, and that area of their factory is really good.
“Literally it would be ‘here’s the wire transfer, give me the keys, a deep clean, this is going live tomorrow’. It would be an instant fix to my growth problems in that we’re growing as a corporation, we need to increase out capacity, hence the whole Gretna site.
“We bought the Gretna site about two years ago. I’m not worried about that. I’m just going to flatten it and put up housing.
Hit the ground running
“But my primary focus, if the Stapleton Road site comes off, is making that as efficient as we can in the shortest period of time. We will hit the ground running.”
Maher envisages all the Pinney’s staff being made redundant, then some being re-employed.
“None of the discussions, conversations and meetings has been around me taking on the business as a going concern, because it isn’t going! It’s all about me buying the land, the building, the machinery, and I will then employ up to 100 of that existing staff.
“If I don’t apply any commercial logic I’d go ‘yeah, I’ll hire 450 people’, but then we’re all bankrupt and out of a job in six months. If we can save 100 jobs, it’s better than 450 people being out of a job.”
