New smoked salmon wins international business
Two Northern Irish seafood companies have teamed up to create a delicious organic smoked salmon that's now attracting business from top restaurants and high-end retailers around the world.
Richly flavoured smoked salmon has been developed by Ewing's Seafoods in Belfast and Glenarm Organic Salmon, County Antrim, Northern Ireland's organic salmon farm. The product carries forward Ewing's longstanding expertise as an artisan smoker of fish and Glenarm's success in the US, Europe, South Asia and the Middle East. Glenarm also supplied organic salmon for meals during the London 2012 Olympics.
They are developing a Northern Irish premium brand to beat the best-smoked salmon currently available in flavour and texture. Initial feedback indicates that this objective is within reach.
The smoked salmon is the most recent seafood from Northern Ireland to 'go global'. Fish processors in Kilkeel, Portavogie and Ardglass have been selling to France, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain for many years.
Among new products winning in Europe are crabmeat and crab claws from Henning in Kilkeel, which also exports fresh oysters from Carlingford Lough to top French restaurants. Another family business there, Rooney Seafoods, a specialist in langoustines for European restaurants and retailers, recently signed a substantial deal in Japan.
EU quotas on cod and traditional catches led the local industry to look for different and more innovative products for export. As a result, the seafood industry is enjoying unprecedented success, which, according to Crawford Ewing, a director of Ewing's Seafoods, is because of a growing recognition that "we have the finest fish and seafood in the world".
It's a view shared by John Russell, Glenarm Organic Salmon's managing director, who has steered it to a 100 per cent growth in business in the US, Europe, Thailand and Singapore.
"What sets our salmon apart is fantastic quality that comes from the fish farm location in the cold, tidal waters of the Irish Sea, which produces a highly textured and delicious fish."
Glenarm turned to Ewing's a business which has been curing and smoking fish since 1911 and now supplies a wide range of seafoods to leading hotels and restaurants, including Titanic Belfast, on a daily basis. Ewing's uses traditional techniques to smoke the salmon slowly over a fragrant mix of beech and oak wood chips.