Smokin' success for Northern Irish fishmonger

Ewing's Seafoods, the Northern Irish fish specialist, is expanding its range of smoked products in response to a growing from restaurants, retailers and consumers.

The family business, Northern Ireland's oldest fishmonger, is building on the popularity of its award winning smoked salmon and pale smoked cod loins, both products gained Great Taste awards last year, with the cod loin being named in the Top 50 Foods. The awards led to a contract with Selfridges for the smoked salmon.

The new products just launched by the Belfast-based business are lightly smoked scallops and a honey-cured smoked salmon. Both products are now featuring on the menus of top restaurants.

The company smokes fish in its own kiln over oak and beech wood chippings using historic family techniques. The cured salmon is salted, cold smoked in the kiln for around 10 hours to draw out the flavours then cured in honey. The scallops are smoked for about three hours

Crawford Ewing, commercial director, says: "We've seen a considerable uplift in smoked fish particularly from chefs looking for different flavours for their menus. It's an area in which we have a lot of experience based on over 100 years in smoking fish.

"Having our own kiln also enables us to be innovative and to be able to offer customers different tastes. We've also been working closely with many of Northern Ireland's chefs in the development of new tastes for them.

"The successes of our organic smoked salmon and pale cod loins in award competitions are also contributing to the demand for other smoked products. Feedback on the cured salmon and scallops has been extremely encouraging," he adds.

Ewing's Seafood was established in 2011 and now supplies a wide range of fresh fish including smoked salmon, cod loins and other fresh seafood throughout Northern Ireland, Great Britain and to the United Arab Emirates.



The company moved to a purpose built factory in 2000 which is fitted to the highest hygiene standards. It includes a smokery for producing the finest smoked fish products to the satisfaction of Michelin star restaurants.