Salmon processor Morpol is to open what it claims will be the most advanced added-value salmon processing site in the world, near Edinburgh.
The 150,000 sq ft site in Rosyth was purchased by Morpol for about £3.7m earlier this year. The company now intended to make an “eight-figure investment to get it up to scratch” with a view to opening the new facility in the spring, said Morpol UK MD Geoff Cormack.
One of the key features of the facility will be technologically advanced slicing machinery that would “make for a more aesthetically pleasing pack” by cutting very cleanly, he said.
The fresh and smoked salmon produced at thesite would be targeted at both export and domestic markets. It would look to grow sales to France, where Scottish salmon is particularly well thought of and fetched a premium above Norwegian salmon, and “a substantial element” was likely to be exported to emerging foreign markets, said Cormack. In the UK, the factory would help Morpol to further its aim of increasing salmon consumption through cuttingedge NPD and good value pack formats, Cormack added. “We’re looking to try and bring back consumers who have moved out of the category.”
Morpol said it hoped the new site would help to grow turnover into “the hundreds of millions rather than the tens of millions”, said Cormack.
The site forms the latest plank in its strategy to fully integrate all its UK operations under the overarching Meridian Salmon Group structure to better reflect its position as a vertically integrated salmon farming, processing and marketing company.
Meridian – set up earlier this year – already encompasses Morpol’s Marine Products and Brookside Products processing operations but full administrative integration will come next year. Poland-based Morpol supplies own-label salmon to Aldi, Lidl and The Co-op and also sells John West branded salmon strips through The Co-op and Sainsbury’s.
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