Northern Ireland shellfish business goes Dutch with crabmeat
Northern Ireland shellfish company Henning Brothers has won its first export business in Europe for frozen crab products. The shellfish processing company has secured business for frozen crabmeat and crab claws from two wholesalers in Amsterdam.
The business breakthrough in the Netherlands was announced by Harold Henning, who founded the seafood company in 1997 with two brothers.
Mr Henning said: "We developed the frozen products as the key element in strategy to grow our business outside Northern Ireland. We had developed good business for live shellfish, prawns, mussels and oysters, particularly in France and Germany, and saw an opportunity to expand sales through the introduction of frozen crab products using an innovative tub that we had designed to facilitate growth in exports.
"As part of our export marketing strategy, we visited Amsterdam for meetings with major wholesalers supplying key market sectors including foodservice and retail. Subsequent discussions led to orders from two leading wholesalers and, as a result, we now have a solid platform for future growth in this important European market."
Based at the harbour in Kilkeel, Northern Ireland's main fishing port, Henning Bros is a family-run business which was originally established in 1979 as a fishing operation and subsequently moved into processing and now specialises in the supply of brown crab, lobster, velvet crab, green crab, whelks, mussels, scallops, oysters and winkles.
All shellfish are sourced locally. Crabmeat is supplied fresh, pasteurised or frozen in packs ranging from 200g to 1kg as required. Single pincer crab claws are graded, packed and supplied frozen. They are packed as 20-30, 50-60 per kilo in bags from 500g to 2.5kg.
The company has two sites at Carlingford Lough to cultivate oysters and owns a new EC approved crab and scallop purification and dispatch centre. It operates from a purpose-built factory which is fully compliant with BRC technical standard and protocol and HACCP accredited.