TURNING JAPANESE-

NORTH-EAST COMPANY SELLS SUSHI TO JAPAN

In a twist to the 'coals to Newcastle' story, a North-east company is selling sushi to Japan after clinching a series of deals to provide sashimi style mumbai and piccante-flavoured salmon.

The Japanese business - which is expected to bring in around £500,000 for Banffshire-based Gourmet's Choice - will see the company supplying 44 tons of smoked salmon in total specifically for the Japanese market.

Salmon display Gourmet's Choice has recently been making major inroads into the export market. Overseas sales have more than doubled in the last 12 months and turnover currently stands at £3m, up almost a third on last year.

"The European market has really opened up this year, and with the Japanese deals we are now beginning to take our business in a new direction," said Terry Curran, the company's sales director.

"Smoked salmon is literally flying out the door - we're already sending out seven to eight tons of smoked salmon overseas per week, six tons of that to Europe. "

Gourmet's Choice was founded around 100 ago by the present managing director's great-grandfather, Daniel Sutherland, in the picturesque fishing village of Portsoy . The company still uses the original smoking recipe developed by Daniel which gives the high-quality salmon its distinctive mellow flavour.

Gourmet's Choice now employs 35 people and is in the middle of a transitional stage, moving the focus of its business from the domestic to the international market. Export business has been developed during the last two years to nine different countries, and the five-year plan is to push up exports to around 70% of total business.

The company's export marketing strategy is based on producing innovative new products for different international tastes. For example, in 2003/04, the company developed its award-winning umbai and piccante smoked salmon for the Spanish market, and in particular the leading retail chain El Corte Ingles.

That theme has now been extended to produce sashimi style mumbai and piccante for the Japanese market.

In April, the company headed for the world's largest seafood event, the European Seafood Exposition (ESE) in Brussels in a bid to create greater word-wide exposure for their products and capture further lucrative overseas deals.

"This year at Brussels we launched a hot roast mumbai and piccante smoked salmon product in a microwavable bag which can be eaten hot or cold. We believe the flavour is extraordinary."said Terry Curran.

The company says that the overseas market is happy to pay for quality and won't compromise on price. Terry Curran continued: "With the help of Scottish Enterprise, we worked on export leads for Japan for the last two years, and after going out to Europe last June with Scottish Development International (SDI), we are now reaping the fruits of our labour, with several major customers throughout Europe ."

In addition to its speciality range of marinated smoked salmon, Gourmets Choice also supplies a full range of smoked salmon products including gravadlax and hot smoked salmon, primarily for catering and wholesale.

The company won the Grampian Food Award for exporting new products last year and also reached the finals of the Food From Britain Exporter Awards 2004, finishing as runners up in the New Exporter category, from hundreds of entries throughout the UK .

Gourmet's Choice can be visited at http://www.gourmetschoice.net