Reflections on the Old and New Year

A New Year

Following a welcome Christmas and New Year break we have now moved into 2014, with renewed enthusiasm and the hope of continued success.

The year started with a bang as 3 January brought renowned Bloggers and Travel Writers Robin McKelvie, Adam Groffman and Kirsten Alana to the Loch Fyne Restaurant and Oyster Bar as part of the second annual Blogmanay. The project promotes Scotland as a tourism destination, with an emphasis on food and drink, over the New Year period.

 We also have several exciting events planned for the forthcoming months including our Loch Fyne Quiz Night on the 16 January which promises to be a fun filled and challenging evening for all the brainiacs out there! Proceeds will be donated to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, an extremely worthwhile cause.

February brings Valentines Day and a sumptuous menu has been created by our kitchen team. Ashet of Loch Fyne Smoked Salmon, Hot West Coast Fruits of the Sea, Chateaubriand (thick tenderloin of beef, ideal for sharing) and a delightfully sinful selection of chocolate desserts await romantic couples. 

The first “Taste of Loch Fyne” Experience Day of the year takes place on 17 January with other dates available throughout the year. This event, which includes champagne and oyster tasting, a visit to our oyster farm, an oyster opening master-class and a five course lunch is always popular with seafood lovers.

For full details of all our events please visit www.lochfyne.com/events

 

Review of 2013

As we say goodbye to 2013, a busy and exciting year of continued growth for Loch Fyne Oysters, it is worth reflecting, in time honoured fashion, on some of the year’s many highlights.

2013 was a year of significant investment. It was also a year of great progress in building our business with our key partners in the UK and target international markets.

IMTA, One Year On

In January we installed the first large scale Integrated Multi Trophic Aquaculture site (IMTA) in Scotland. The site has enabled us to introduce new species to our cultivated portfolio and expand our capacity to meet growing demand.

 Integrated Aquaculture involves growing various species of sea life alongside each other in order to create a balanced ecosystem which benefits the species and reduces costs to the environment. Currently we are the only Scottish producer trialling this method of farming.

 One year on we have successfully grown the first commercial crop of Alaria Esculata seaweed in Scotland, while settled queen scallops from wild spat and mussels, oysters, sea urchins and queen scallops are flourishing alongside farmed salmon.

 In June, as part of our Aquaculture strategy to increase shellfish production we purchased Seasalter (Walney) Ltd trading as Morecambe Bay Oysters. We were delighted to welcome Managing Director of Seasalter, Kelsey Thomson, who brought with him a wealth of experience and expertise to the Loch Fyne team.

 The site comprises a beach area and oyster hatchery which provided us with the opportunity to expand production. Currently, we are scaling a large on-growing oyster site on MorecambeBay, this will become one of the largest in the UK.

In December we acquired the assets of Hebridean Mussels and Hebridean Seafoods which are well established mussel farming and processing businesses located in Loch Roag on the Isle of Lewis.

We have just finished harvesting and are delighted to be working alongside this highly skilled workforce and have welcomed the knowledge of Owner, Cree MacKenzie who has tens of years of experience in the industry.

Kinglas Fillet Wins Taste Test

In December our Kinglas Fillet was declared the winner in blind taste tests conducted for, al dente-the magazine for connoisseurs by six top industry professionals from Switzerland.

 To win Loch Fyne Oysters fought off competition from Norway, Ireland and other Scottish producers. It is a tribute to the artisanal skills of our Smokehouse team and the quality of our salmon to win this very prestigious award.

 Our New Clothes

We closed on 30 January 2013, to begin the renovation of our Oyster Bar, Restaurant and Deli. Thanks to our design partners and with guidance from our Culinary Director, Roy Brett it was an exciting development thoughtfully planned in order to preserve its original character, history and unique atmosphere.

The refurbished Oyster Bar, Restaurant and Deli re-opened at Easter and was very well received by our customers.

 Bradan Orach Wins Festive Foods Smoked Salmon Tests

In October our Bradan Orach smoked salmon was selected as overall category winner in taste tests conducted by Good Housekeeping Magazine.

Founded in 1885, the publication is the world’s premier women’s magazine and awards the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” to products which represent a high standard of quality.  The company was delighted to be recognised by such an influential and highly respected publication.

 Scotland’s Best Gigas Oysters

We were proud to have been awarded “Scotland’s Best Gigas Oysters” at the Association of Scottish Shellfish Growers Annual Conference in Oban in October. It was especially meaningful to us because the awards are made by industry experts.

 

 8/11/13

A Social Media Love Affair By Leanne Muldowney

Social media is changing and fast. Although Facebook continues to hold the title of top social networking site, the last few years have seen major social innovation.

At Loch Fyne Oysters we view social networking sites as an excellent tool for expanding our market presence; promoting our brand and providing a direct human channel for our customers. Along with Facebook and Twitter our Social Marketing Strategy now includes Kiltr and Pinterest.

Kiltr is a social and professional content sharing site for everyone with a Scottish connection and for this reason is unique in its approach to networking.  It’s a great forum for sharing views, opinions, images and videos.

So if you’re a fan of our bonnie land you should check it out!

For those of you who are not familiar with Pinterest, it is a virtual, online pin board. The site allows us to create targeted, theme based collections of events, awards, produce and much more.

However if, like me, you are already a self confessed Pinterest addict you will understand it for the fantastic, fun loving social network that it is. I have spent several hours more than is actually necessary (Don’t tell the boss!) drooling over fish recipes and searching for beautiful images of Loch Fyne to pin to our boards.

We have worked hard to create content which will inform, inspire and bring us closer to our customers. We also understand that building relationships is an art so we would love you to give us your feedback and tell us what you would like to see!

Join us on these social networks and share your favourite images, videos and memories of Loch Fyne Oysters.

Follow us on Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/lochfyneoysters/boards/ Follow us on Kiltr: https://www.kiltr.com/lochfyneoysters Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LochFyneOysters Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lochfyneoysters

How to slice smoked salmon

Though most smoked salmon we sell is pre-sliced, if you ask the experts the best way to serve smoked salmon, they will say to slice it from an unsliced side as you serve it. Though this may seem a daunting task, it is actually a skill easily learned and  once mastered never forgotten. I once spent a morning  with Vivian, one of our expert hand slicers, in our slicing room and have been slicing  salmon whenever the occasion arises (usually at Christmas or when out at shows and exhibitions). Here’s how you do it:

 1. You need a very sharp knife with plenty of length and breadth. This is VERY IMPORTANT.  This is the type we use:

Salmon slicing knife

 2. Keep your side of smoked salmon in the fridge until you are going to slice it but is shouldn’t be too cold. Smoked salmon is best served at room temperature.

 3. If you are right handed place the salmon in front of you so that the tail end ( the thinner end) is on your right.

 4. Place the knife about a quarter of the way up the fish, holding it almost horizontal,  but so that the leading edge just cuts into the fish :- see photo

Knife angle for slicing salmon

 5. Move the knife backwards and forwards along the full length of the knife, gradually moving towards the tail of the fish and slightly downwards. This should give you a slice shaped like an elongated D.

 6. Keep slicing towards the tail, gradually moving up the fish. You should be able to see the blade of the knife through the salmon – that’s how you know you have got it thin enough.

 7. When you get to the skin,  cut along it to get all the salmon off.

 8. When you get to the top of the fish you can turn and cut the other way, to get the last few slices off.

 9. It should look like this but doesn’t worry if it doesn’t first time round – it will still taste delicious!

D sliced smoked salmon

 Best of luck and if you have any tips of your own please pass them on!

How to make Rowan Jelly

For fans of Rowan Jelly, the prolific rowan berry crop this year is a welcome sight. The trees around us are bent over with fruit.  The berries have been scarce the last few years, so get out here and get picking!

Here’s how you do it: identify your local Rowan trees and pick the berries off in bunches.

Rowan Tree with ripe berries

Take berries off their stalks

There should be a deep red colour. Take the berries off their stalks and put into a large pan. Add water up to about ¾ of the level of the fruit.  Simmer until the berries have lost their colour and gone pulpy.

Cooking berries to make into jelly

Strain through a muslin cloth or jelly bag- leave to strain for at least 4 hours.  Keep the juice and put the berries on your compost. At this point if you are pushed for time you can freeze the juice and come back and do the next bit when you have more time.

Measure the juice. You need a pound of sugar (just over 500gm)  for every pint  (just over 500ml). Rub a piece of lemon round a large pan. Add juice and right amount of sugar. Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. Add in peeled lemon and some cloves wrapped up in some muslin or thin cloth. Boil rapidly. Once it is boiling keep testing for the ‘setting point’ by putting a teaspoonful on a cold plate and seeing if it wrinkles when it gets cold. Once you have got to this point put it into small jam jars and leave to set. You can buy sugar with added pectin which helps it set. Great with any red meat and especially with venison. Let us know how you get on.

Loch Fyne Food Fair – May 19th and 20th 2012

Local village food festivals are a common phenomena in rural Europe but have not been part of the British tradition until more recent times. When we first started our Food Fair in 1990 it was based on these European village feasts with the main ingredients being local food, cover to sit and eat it, music and a well stocked bar. 22 years on the ingredients have remained the same though we have expanded it to include stuff for kids to do, an evening Celidh, craft tent and most recently ‘table talk sessions’ when we get producers to sit down with interested folk and talk about what they do and why  and how they do it.

Having been told about these village feasts I have since experienced them twice on the Continent – once in the French village of Lignac near Poitier when there was a communal meal served in the village square to finish off the local fete day. Secondly high in the mountains above Lake Garda in Italy where the day was devoted to a Chestnut Feast. The edges of the Marquee were packed with stands selling all manner of different chestnuts cooked and prepared in different ways, plus of course a well stocked bar and local musicians – just like ours at Loch Fyne. There were also similar stands run by local groups raising funds for their activites.   The pleasure in these events come from sitting down with friends and family and new faces enjoying the best the region has to offer in situ. Every year we see many of the same folk returning to the Food Fair and it creates an atmosphere of bon homie that brings people back year after year..

In the last couple of years other event have grown up around the Food Fair so that within a 10 mile radius we now have a beer festival  FyneFest, run by Fyne Ales, in June.Two music festival weekends The Stage at Cairndow in July and Disconnect in Inveraray in August, plus the more traditional and long established Inveraray Highland Games in July and a brand new event celebrating music, arts and craft and food and drink, The Best of the West at Inveraray Castle in September.

Running events in Argyll involves a lot of determination ( some would say insanity) due to the variable weather conditions.  Our first Food Fair was held in glorious sunshine which we have only experienced a few times since on the appointed days but we live in hope! Meanwhile it’s a case of beating the weather by getting the right kit on ( wellies usually a must) and coming along and joining in. See you there!

Loch Fyne Food Fair – plenty of cover from the rain or sun

A quick word about Hamish…

An enquiry from a journalist has prompted me to tell the story of our prize oyster, Hamish, who for many years travelled around as our mascot.

When the first of our Loch Fyne Oysters were put down in the late 1970’s oyster farming was a bit more haphazard than it is these days and a few adventurous molluscs escaped along the shore line and continued growing undisturbed.

When we started opening more Oyster Bars in the 1980’s it was always good to have a star attraction at the openings and my uncle Johnny, rather than be upstaged by anyone else, decided the best candidate for this would be one of the ‘giant’ oysters that had recently been discovered on the shore. So Hamish began his travels.

Loch Fyne Oysters giant oyster Hamish

Oysters can travel and stay alive for considerable periods of time if kept cool and damp, so Hamish use to rise from his bed on the shore and travel with Johnny by train, car and plane to wherever a new site was opening, then be returned to refresh himself in Loch Fyne a few days later. He was always popular wherever he went and developed quite a fan club.

When we began our Food Fair in 1990 he extended his activities in the Guess the Weight of Hamish competition. To ring the changes a consort was found for him in the shape of a slightly smaller oyster who was named after Johnny’s friend and food writer/champion Henrietta Green, so it became a double act.

Into the new millennium Hamish continued to tour while Loch Fyne Restaurants opened  and the Food Fair grew. Sadly 2003 saw the passing away of not only my uncle Johnny, but also Hamish. Possible in sympathy for his lost companion but also because we reckon 25 years is about the limit an oyster can live to.

Johnny Noble, Founding partner of Loch Fyne Oysters

There are more Hamish tales to come and maybe some more giant oysters  so watch this space.

Movies on the Move

In these days when all sorts of entertainments are available on a small screen in your hand,  it is refreshing to find how much excitement the visit of a mobile cinema can generate in rural Argyll. Our nearest local cinema is  45 minutes away,  the nearest multiplex about an hour  and we are quite well situated for transport links, but for anyone west of us the journey is even greater. 

The Screen Machine travels round the Highlands

Since the late 1990’s the Screen Machine has been making its way around the highlands and islands of Scotland providing rural communities with a cinema experience on their doorstep. The cunningly designed vehicle travels the roads in its HGV format and then transforms into an 80 seater cinema.

Inside the Screen Machine

Personally I have watched films in the Screen Machine in the far flung highlands of Sutherland ( while on holiday in Kinlochbervie) and nearer to home when it pays an annual visit to Invercottage at Strathlachlan at Christmas time. The Christmas before last we battled through very snowy conditions to get there to watch White Christmas. Particularly magical when emerging into a snow covered landscape.

At Loch Fyne a few years ago it came as part of Cowal Fest and showed films by  Michael Powell including  I know where I’m going , a great film for romantic lovers of the highlands with a magical sequence depicting the sleeper train ride from London to Fort William.

On every occasion the experience has been memorable and all the more enjoyable for being out of the usual setting.

This Monday (26th March) it is coming back to Loch Fyne Oysters to show two movies aimed at all ages. The Muppets and War Horse. To make the experience even better our Oyster Bar are putting on a special menu at £10 a head for adults and £5 for kids. If you are in the area come and experience it for yourself.

Of course mobile cinemas are not new and have been around as long as projectors and film. Fans of Cinema Paradiso will remember  the projector being  transported outside for an open air showing.  In 1967 Tony Benn had several mobile cinemas built for the Ministry of Technology and in countries with more reliable weather open air film showings have always been popular.

Mobile Cinema 1967

Let us know your experiences of cinema on the move and hope you can make it to ours.

The Big Bang Show

This afternoon I went to our local Primary school in Inveraray to be part of the audience at  a joint production by Scottish opera’s outreach team and 7 of our local primary schools. The reason I was there was that the Loch Fyne Oysters Trust has helped to fund the event. The remit of the Trust is to further ” the advancement of education and the protection of the environment particularly within Scotland and the area around the head of Loch Fyne” and this particular event couldn’t have fitted this remit better. 

Scottish Opera's Primary School Production The Big Bang

The schools had been individually rehearsing the music and words over the past few months, and today the Scottish Opera team got together with them to add costumes, moves, dance and performance within the space of 3 hours before they took to the stage. The excitement of the children and their concentration was a credit to all and resulted in a great production brimming with enthusiasm. The amount of ‘education’ received through this process was also clear to see – not only performance skills, confidence boosting and so on but also in the subject matter and messages conveyed by the script and music. It was amazing how poignant a moment can be achieved by 200 brightly coloured costumed children collapsing to the floor of a school hall as a result of the world imploding. Thankfully the ending was more upbeat with the message being that ‘it’s  not too late to do something about it’. The kids all looked as if they were throughly enjoying themselves and  meeting up with each other, as often the rural schools can be isolated from one another.

Meanwhile back on the home front our enthusiastic  Facilities Manager, John Meaney, has been putting into place a whole range of projects to get our emissions down and recycling up. I’ll get him to tell you all about it one day but meanwhile you might be interested in the targets he has set us.

As a post script to todays event I noticed the script was by Ross Stenhouse. Ross is a performer and writerI have known for many years including a couple when he acted as Compere for our annual Food Fair. It’s a small world.

Thank you to Ross and the Scottish Opera team for a great show.

March Madness and Mussel Spawning

The night before last I was woken just before midnight by what sounded like a sonic boom. The night was perfectly still and brightly lit by an almost full moon. Thinking I must have been dreaming I went back to sleep though next morning I looked around in case a tree had fallen down of there had been a major rockslide, but nothing. When I got to work others reported the same experience and the conclusion was that it was an earth tremor. Apparently we lie on a fault which stretched out past the island of Islay which has also been experiencing tremors recently. I later learnt that they are nothing new – Google came up with cuttings from 1956 reporting exactly the same events. New on for me though, to add to the excitements of living in Argyll.

At this time of year the vagaries of the weather seem even more diverse than usual. Today we woke up to blue skies but snow is forecast for later. We are having a new water treatment system installed in the field in front of the oyster bar and they are having to pump water out of the hole they have dug to put the tanks in.

You can feel a ‘quickening’ going on all around with daffodils bravely forcing their way out, and even some cherry blossom. Our mussels traditionally start spawning at the same time as the daffodils come out so our mussel farm team are keeping an eye on them. Once they start we will leave them alone as the spawning process produces a red liquid which doesn’t taste good. The spawning process is an essential part of the cycle of growing mussels. Here’s the best explanation I have found of what happens:

When the conditions are right, the male and female mussels spawn releasing their eggs and sperm into the water where the eggs are immediately fertilized. Within 24 hours the fertilized eggs become swimming larvae and remain so for around a time span of three weeks, at which time they go through another change where they develop their shell and other organs. At this point they are ready to settle on something solid.

As the mussel goes through this final change from a swimming larvae to its shelled form it is about (1/3 of a millimeter) long, it develops a foot. On the base of this foot there is a gland which secretes a very strong cement to whatever it attaches itself to. (In our case ropes we hang in the Loch)

Once attached (to whatever), the mussel pulls its foot back creating a thread of the cement which hardens on contact with the sea water. The mussel will continue to put out these threads until it is securely attached to some structure. At that point it has pretty much found its home for life, although it can use its foot to attach to something nearby and still move a little bit. Once settled the mussels begin to feed.
Mussels require an abundant supply of  clear contaminant free water. ( equals Loch Fyne)
(www.nzunderwaterlife)

Loch Fyne Mussel Farm

Mussels around Scotland spawn at different times so when ours are spawning we shift our supply to Shetland to that we can keep out customers supplied all year round.
Once spring has sprung and the mussels spat has attached itself to our ropes we go back to our own farm.

Tonight I am off to tell the local Brownie group all about Mussels – let’s hope there are no earth tremors or heavy snow falls to add to the adventure!

A Sea Change

“a sea-change
into something rich and strange.”*

Loch Fyne Oysters, Cairndow

We have had something of a sea change at Loch Fyne Oysters this week as we have entered into a partnership/merger with an investment company (SSI) which already has a strong foothold in the seafood world and which will bring to LFO capital and support to help us move forward through the next decades.

Full information is in the press release which has been published widely over the last few days.

On the ground there is a feeling of increased security and the opportunity to move ideas and ambitions forward which have been difficult to achieve recently.

The company has gone through several ‘sea-changes’ in its history and has always embraced them with enthusiasm and pragmatism. This latest merging will be particularly important with regards to growing our export markets. Having recently visited Europe, it seems that often we forget what lies beyond our borders and how big a world there is out there.

This week I had a meeting with a group of marketing students at Strathclyde University who are working on a project for Food from Argyll. They were 5 highly intelligent and lively individuals from France, Greece, Brazil, India and China. All spoke fluent English and demonstrated a wide knowledge in all sorts of areas. To have such an international group working on a project about regional food from Argyll parallels the recent LFO/SSI merger in bringing a large international company, based in Scotland, together with a specialist regional producer. Better together than apart!

Initially it might seem strange but if past history is anything to go on LFO will quickly adapt and embrace the change while remaining true to its core values, community and locality. Here’s to the future.

* From Shakespeare’s The Tempest