St James Smokehouse to buy Pinneys

THE owner of the award winning Scottish salmon company St James Smokehouse said speculation that he was planning to buy Pinneys was correct.
Brendan Maher (pictured) said he and his factory manager, Leo Sprott, had spent 10 hours at the factory in Annan, which Young’s Seafood has put up for sale.
‘We spent 10 hours there looking at it and getting a feel for the building, and to see if we can change the way they operate and make it more efficient,’ Maher told Fish Update during the Seafood Expo show in Brussels, where St James Smokehouse is exhibiting.
He said it made perfect sense to take on Pinneys because they both do smoked salmon and were both based in Annan, with many of their staff interchangeable over the years.
Maher, who set up his business in 2003, said his goal then was to be as good as Pinneys, ‘the Rolls Royce of smoked salmon, the benchmark’.
‘Fast forward and we’re doing better than them,’ he said, suggesting Pinneys had made a mistake in only having one customer, Marks & Spencer, which ended its contract recently.
Maher said the company also lost its focus of being the Rolls Royce of smoked salmon when it decided to diversify into other products.
Contrary to previous reports, he said he wouldn’t be able to retain all 450 staff at the site, but hoped to employ a maximum of 100.
‘No company on planet earth could retain 450 there and remain profitable,’ he said.
Maher has set up another smokehouse in Miami, spending £7-8 million on the project. He described it as a ‘cool’ smokehouse, more like an Apple store than a fish facility.
He said he wanted people to drive past and then go in and ask for an iPhone 10 because they thought it was an Apple store.
‘I’ve built an Apple store! It’s not your usual stinky fish factory. It’s minimalist, serene with lots of glass… and a terrace of orange trees.’