A Cumbrian shellfish business is targeting a lucrative new market in China with help from the GSK Enterprise Fund.
Kingfisher Seafoods in Barrow-in-Furness will use a £50,000 grant from the fund towards a £280,000 project that includes the purchase of a new fishing vessel that can operate all year.
The investment will create four jobs and safeguard two more.
Dr Omar Namor, a director of the firm, said: “Most of our product is unpurified shellfish exported to Europe. We were concerned that, under a no-deal Brexit, that trade would cease.
“We began to look at alternative markets, in particular the Far East, and identified demand for whelks from China.”
The business needs to ensure year-round continuity of supply to meet the needs of Chinese consumers but its 50-year-old fishing vessel, Pamela S, isn’t suited to winter conditions.
Dr Namor said: “In the winter the vessel rolls so much it’s difficult to stand on deck. The plan is to replace her with a catamaran that is much more stable. Without the grant we wouldn’t be able to do that.”
The GSK Enterprise Fund provides grants of between £2,000 and £100,000 to meet up to 30 per cent of the cost of projects that create permanent employment.
The pharmaceutical company set up the £0.5m fund to mitigate the impact of job losses at its Ulverston site. Cumbria Business Growth Hub operates the scheme on behalf of GSK.
Suzanne Caldwell, Deputy Chief Executive of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, the lead partner in the Growth Hub, said: “This grant will be a game changer for Kingfisher Seafoods.
“It safeguards the future of the business and enables them to target a lucrative new market. This is exactly the type of project that GSK envisaged when it set up the scheme.”
Although the GSK Enterprise Fund remains open, grant applications are temporarily on hold because of the high level of demand. Cumbria Business Growth Hub has a waiting list of expressions of interest ready to go forward for consideration.
Kingfisher Seafoods was established in 2004 by Dr Namor and Rob Benson. Based at Forge Close, Barrow, it employs six people and exports cockles, mussels, mussel seed, oysters, periwinkles, razor clams, whelk meat and cockle meat.
