Bumper year for Uist smokehouse
Salar Smokehouse, on South Uist, reports a 45% increase in production in 2016 – an impressive turnaround for a business that faced closure less than a year before.
The smokehouse, whose trademark dish is its hot-smoked flaky salmon, was mothballed for several months, after its previous owners, Loch Duart, (please remove their name) decided to close it down in April 2015. However, it was bought by Iain MacRury, who had been managing the facility and, after reopening in July 2015, has been going from strength to strength.
As Iain explains to Fish Farming Expert: “Things are going fantastic, everything going well above plan and we have seen an increase of 45% in production and hope to build on that in 2017 with a few new contracts in the pipeline.”
“We are also working on brand/packaging image with a design company which we hope will be ready for the new summer season 2017,” he adds.
As a result of the increased activity, Iain is now in discussion to move to new premises, in favour of the current facility, which has been operational since 1987.
“We also have plans to move to new purpose-built premises in partnership with the local community landowners, but this is still in the early planning stages,” he explains.
The increase in production has, thankfully, not done any harm to the quality of the product, to judge from the company’s presence on the shortlists of numerous food and drink awards during last year.
“We have been fortunate to have been nominated for numerous awards UK wide and have been finalists and runners up in a couple of categories in 2016 – which is a great achievement in a short time,” Iain concludes.
