This is how Venture Seafoods is growing, thanks to European money and Canadian machinery

A Bridlington company which exports shellfish around the world is looking to reduce food waste with a new machine wich has arrived from Canada.
Gary Hodgson of Venture SeafoodsGary Hodgson of Venture Seafoods
Gary Hodgson of Venture Seafoods

Venture Seafoods was able to secure a grant from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund to buy the equipment, which extract meat from crab legs. The meat from this part of the crab is very difficult to extract and usually ends up as waste.

The company, which is based at Carnaby, employs 33 local people permanently and is the largest crab meat producer on the east coast of England.

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It approached the Holderness Coast Fishery Local Action Group (FLAG) because it needed to extract the maximum yield from the crabs, as the price is rising.

Gary Hodgson of Venture Seafoods said: “We are very grateful for the financial assistance from the Holderness Coast FLAG, their contribution has allowed us to purchase this machine from Canada.

“As a company we have continued to invest in the facilities, machinery and employee training since relocating to the purpose built site in 2012 in order to progress the company and to remain competitive in a difficult trading environment.

“We are unsure how Brexit will affect the 85% of the UK shellfish that are exported to Europe each year and we have been investing to be able to supply different markets if the Brexit discussions are unfavourable to the UK shellfish industry.”

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The company process live, raw, cooked, chilled and frozen shellfish and distributes the product to the UK, Europe and Asia.

The new machine uses compressed air to extract the meat from the legs, avoiding the need for manual extraction.