A major expansion project at the Hebridean Smokehouse on North Uist will mean eight new jobs and the quadrupling of production.

The £670,000 project will involve the extension of the firm's current building and the purchase of specialist plant and equipment, resulting in the creation of a state of the art fish processing facility.

Formerly know as Mermaid Fish Supplies, Hebridean Smokehouse was established in 1970 at Locheport by George Jackson but was purchased by Fergus Granville in September 2000.  Hebridean Smokehouse offers a range of smoked fish products direct to the customer via mail order.  The company's most popular lines include cold smoked salmon, hot smoked salmon and smoked sea trout with peat being the raw material in the smoking process.

Western Isles Enterprise (WIE) is supporting the expansion of Hebridean Smokehouse with a building and development grant worth £200,500.  In addition, the company has secured marketing assistance from WIE worth £18,240 towards the cost of its £40,000 marketing campaign. 

Commenting on the reasons behind the development, Mr Granville explained: "Our current premises cannot cope with the demand we have for our products.  Also, it is not an ideal working environment for fish production with several different tasks being undertaking in a general-purpose area as opposed to designated sections.

"With help from Western Isles Enterprise we will have a modern facility which will allow us to increase production by 400 per cent, enable us to try smoking other products such as scallops and more importantly, it will improve efficiency."

The investment will go towards the cost of extending the building which will have separate designated areas for the distinctive processing stages such as smoking, gutting, thawing, washing, filleting and chilling as well as slicing and packing.  New processing equipment will include vacuum packaging machines, kilns, a blast freezer and a slicing machine.

Marketing assistance from WIE will go towards the cost of re-launching the business with a new corporate identity and the re-positioning of Hebridean Smokehouse products as premium foods.  Marketing activities will include direct mail, attendance at key public food exhibitions and the development of a full e-commerce website. 

The business currently employs five staff but the expansion of Hebridean Smokehouse will create a further eight full-time jobs.  This is good news for North Uist, which is a particularly fragile area of the Western Isles, with few employment opportunities.

Chief executive at WIE, Donnie Macaulay said: "The aquaculture industry is extremely important to the economy of the Western Isles, creating much needed employment is some of our most fragile areas.

"In the case of Hebridean Smokehouse, this is a company whose products are synonymous with quality which helps promote a positive image of the Western Isles, its businesses and the local environment."