Northern Ireland's Sea Source targets faster growth in global markets

Sea Source in Northern Ireland has launched a major drive in the Middle East to grow sales of seafood to top chefs there.

Based at Kilkeel in county Down, Northern Ireland's main fishing harbour, the company, which is a fishermen's co-operative, has showcased its products, including langoustines and scallops, to top chefs in Dubai and is following up business contacts there.

Alan McCulla, Sea Source chief executive, commenting on the recent marketing trip to the Emirates, says: "The meeting in the Emirates strengthened my conviction that the fish and seafood industry in Northern Ireland has immense potential, especially post-Brexit, to grow sales abroad.

"Top chefs in major hotels and restaurants I met there were impressed by the quality, provenance and outstanding flavours of Northern Ireland seafood and especially the langoustines and scallops our trawlers harvest from the Irish Sea. Our products are high-value, highly regarded and capable of attracting premium prices.

"While we already export much of our fish and langoustines to France and Italy, I believe that there's a substantial business opportunity to export a great deal more to these and other international markets.

"The United Kingdom's imminent departure from the European Union will free the industry from the restrictions of the failed Common Fisheries Policy and give us greater control over our own destiny and plot a course for a more prosperous future for fishing communities, in particular, and the wider Northern Ireland economy."

Mr McCulla is keen to see the growth opportunity to promote Northern Ireland seafood as a distinctive product and to use its regional provenance to drive a thriving export market - ramping up value and volume. "This is why we are now busily developing the Sea Source brand and identifying it with Kilkeel. Our aim is to see our branded products featuring on the menus of high-end restaurants and leading retailers in key global markets."

The company is also campaigning for Kilkeel to be identified and developed as Northern Ireland's seafood hub to enable it to handle bigger trawlers landing herring and mackerel.

"Expanding harbour facilities would enable us to land other species, most which could be exported. At present, Kilkeel doesn't have the facilities for the trawlers for these fish, which are either landed in Scotland or the Republic of Ireland. Several of the trawlers involved in this business have told us they would use Kilkeel if essential harbour facilities were to be developed for them," he adds.

Sea Source is a unique producers' organisation. Established as the Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers Organisation (ANIFPO) in 1984, Sea Source is a collective of county Down trawler owners with its own fish selling division, processing arm, and offshore energy services company.


Sea Source catches, sells and processes its own fish and shellfish products, reducing costs and maximising the financial return to local fishermen and the coastal community centred on Kilkeel, Northern Ireland's biggest fishing port.


The fishing industry, according to a report to the Northern Ireland Assembly earlier in the year, has sales of just over £77 million, more than three-quarters of which are outside Northern Ireland. Seafood worth around £30 million exported.