New ways to source nutritious fish and seafood fresh from the sea

Sea Source, a unique collective of trawler owners in Co Down fishing ports, is taking to the road to offer families here greater access to fresh fish and shellfish from local fishing boats.

The organisation, which represents dozens fishing families around Northern Ireland’s main port and other harbours, introduced a purpose-built mobile kitchen with a menu of freshly cooked seafood dishes at the pre-Christmas Dicken’s Day in Kilkeel on Saturday and has ambitious plans to make it a regular feature at food markets and other outdoor events in parts of NI in the months ahead.

The mobile kitchen featured an initial selection of fresh snacks such as scampi, haddock goujons and chowder from premium quality produce from local trawlers. In addition, Sea Source, established as the Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers Organisation (ANIFPO) in 1984 to represent the interests of the important local industry, has expanded its popular shop in the coastal town and is developing its delivery services across the province for fresh seafood including delicious platters of freshly landed fish and shellfish such as langoustines and lobsters.

The expanded retail outlet, which now has greater shopping, preparation and refrigeration facilities, is offering opportunities for other local artisan producers on its shelves and chill cabinets.

The business growth initiative means that fresh Sea Source seafood, highly valued for quality and outstanding taste in markets as diverse as Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy and the Far East, will be more widely available here.

“Our first street food van is an immensely exciting initiative for us, providing opportunities to enable more people here to enjoy fish and seafood snacks from the trawlers that are cooked freshly in a well-equipped kitchen manned by experienced staff and operating to the highest hygiene standards,” explains Sea Source’s marketing manager Kathryn Graham.

“It’s a hugely important investment for us which is designed to increase awareness among families here of the health and nutritional benefits of fresh fish and seafood direct from local trawlers and also to enhance returns to the fishermen.

“Our new shop in Kilkeel’s Newcastle Street, furthermore, represents a significant expansion in the first shop we opened in the town a few years ago for locally landed seafood. This proved such a popular venture for the company that we simply had to find much bigger premises to develop services to consumers.”

From its base at Kilkeel Harbour, Sea Source, headed by seafood specialist Alan McCulla, the experienced chief executive, also operates successfully its own fish selling division, a processing arm and an offshore energy services company.

The progressive business, in addition, is spearheading plans for the growth of the fishing industry here through a very significant expansion of Kilkeel harbour and its facilities for landing and processing fish and seafood and for other marine activities. Kilkeel and other local ports are major suppliers of scampi for processing here and in Britain.

In effect, Sea Source catches, sells and processes its own fish and shellfish products, reducing costs and maximising the financial return to local fishermen and the coastal community centred on the busy harbour.

It’s now a key player in the local fishing industry which has annual sales of around £80 million, more than three-quarters of which are to customers outside Northern Ireland including processors and customers in both retail and hospitality. Seafood worth around £30 million is exported making it an industry that’s among the most successful in terms of external sales.

While Sea Source has grown and diversified into a range of activities, it remains, at its heart, a producer organisation, dedicated to promoting the local fishing industry and ensuring that fishermen along the Down coast are able to embrace and exploit all the opportunities which exist to make a worthwhile livelihood from the sea.

As well as Kilkeel, Sea Source members are based in the smaller fishing ports of Annalong, Ardglass and Portavogie along the spectacular coastline. Sea Source members harvest superb quality fish and seafood from the waters around the UK and Ireland.

The harvest has included mackerel, herring and other oily fish landed by the biggest trawlers in the NI fleet; through lobster and crab from small inshore potting vessels; to langoustines, which are landed alongside a range of white fish such as haddock by trawlers from the harbours. Award-winning Millbay oysters from Carlingford Lough are also processed at Kilkeel.

In addition to developing the business and expanding the harbour to help in the regeneration Kilkeel as a key centre in the Mournes, Sea Source is contributing to efforts to offer young people in particular rewarding careers and reduce migration from the region.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper whenever you are able to do so.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper when you can safely.

You can also enjoy unlimited access to the best news from across Northern Ireland and the UK by subscribing to newsletter.co.uk

With a digital subscription, you can read more than five articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Thank you