Young's Seafood pulls out of Grantown

Business minister Fergus Ewing has assured Grantown that “all steps” are being taken to find alternative tenants at the former Spey Valley Smokehouse following this week’s departure of Young’s Seafood.

He told the Strathy: "Both as Minister for Business and the local MSP, I am ensuring that all practical steps are being taken to seek alternative business at the Grantown facility. I am chairing the Fraserburgh Taskforce on Friday this week, and continuing to work with local authority partners as well as HIE to seek out other opportunities for all the workforce who have lost their jobs or may do so over the next weeks.”

He said that Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the owners of the site, were taking appropriate steps to identify other potential business interest.

“As the economic development agency the HIE team are working hard in order to identify other opportunities for the workers in Grantown on Spey and I am keeping in close contact with them on this important matter. Together, we will keep the Strathy informed of progress.

“My colleague Drew Hendry and I visited the site last year, and are both determined to do all we can to secure a constructive future for the plant.”

The “no-smoking” sign at Grantown’s Achnagonalin Industrial Estate had a sad irony about it as Young’s Seafood confirmed that negotiations with their landlord had failed.

The troubled company told the Strathy they had found no common ground with their landlord Highlands and Islands Enterprise in their bid to acquire the premises and were moving out.

It means that hopes that the 25-strong workforce and others could be taken on later this autumn when a major new contract had been expected to start have been extinguished.

The seafood firm had said at the end of last year they were confident of securing new big retail contracts for the Grantown smokehouse in the latter part of 2016 and were keen to start trademarking Spey Valley produce. But talks broke down over the terms of the sale of the premises.

It is understood that Young’s wanted an outright sale but were not offering any guarantees of bringing in new work or continuing the lease in the meantime.

A spokesperson for Grimsby-based Young’s said yesterday (Wednesday): “In accordance with the terms of the lease, Young’s Seafood Limited provided the necessary contractual notice to the landlord to purchase the site and provided commitments to former employees to rehire them upon the commencement of the new contracts.

“During the past 30 days the landlord has made it clear that they will not now allow the company to purchase the site on these agreed terms.

About half of the workforce opted for voluntary redundancy by the mid-January deadline with enhanced redundancy packages. Young’s spokesperson said: “Most other members of staff have since been made redundant with enhanced redundancy packages. One employee remains in situ.”

A spokesperson for HIE said they were disappointed by Young’s decision to pull out of Grantown but hopeful of finding a new tenant.

He said: “HIE’s smokehouse at Grantown is a valuable economic asset for the town. Our aim is to see it continuing to support local jobs for many years to come.

“Now that Young’s Seafood is no longer running any contracts from Grantown, it is in the best interests of the community that the smokehouse should remain in public ownership through HIE, at least in the short term.

“We offered Young’s an extension on their present lease, which would have enabled the business to retain occupancy while seeking new contracts. “We were also clear that we would be happy to consider selling again in future, once they had returned the premises to productive use.”

• More on this story in this week’s Strathspey and Badenoch Herald, out now.

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