A Scottish seafood company has announced it will stop trading 12 years after it opened - with its founder blaming Covid, Brexit and second home owners for depriving it of trade and workers.
Guy Grieve, founder of the The Ethical Shellfish Company, based on the Isle of Mull, said the decision caused “considerable anxiety and heartache" but claimed it had been left with no choice after a period of poor trading.
In a newsletter sent to clients, Grieve blamed numerous challenges the company was unable to overcome from the impact of regulation and globalb warming to the pandemic to Brexit.
He revealed the company was forced to sell its own fishing boats to keep the company afloat during the pandemic as the business lost its market overnight as the country locked down in 2020.
Grieve explained the company attempted to launch a home to delivery service to replace its business but it was still experiencing a “massive reduction” in its sales.
He explained that the fishing boats had a “hefty” bank loan against it which was made worse by the loss in sales. As a result, it was unable to keep up with repayments and was left with no option but to sell the boats to clear its loans.
He wrote: “We weren't too worried when we sold our boats, as we had a solid supply base from other small dive fishing boats working up and down the West Coast.”
"However several of these operations relied on European crew, who left the UK during Covid and then weren't able to return.
He added: “This left drastic crew shortages which in the end caused our main supplier to quit fishing altogether and leave Scotland. It also made it even more difficult to staff our small operation on Mull.”
Grieve also criticised the “scourge” of second-homes being used up as holiday accommodation or short-term lets on the Isle of Mull.
He revealed that the company's own landlord made the business leave its headquarters, so it could be turned into a holiday home.
Grieve added: "We tried to find people to work for us on Mull but with nowhere to stay it is nigh-on impossible to attract people to move there.
"The scourge of second homes means that houses stand empty for months waiting to be populated by holiday makers in the summer.
"Meanwhile real working people, who would contribute to the community, struggle to find places to stay, and any homes that come on the market are snapped up at inflated prices as second homes."
The Ethical Shellfish Company had prided itself on 'hand-catching' scallops rather than dredging them from the seabed.
The method is believed to avoid wasting younger scallops that are not fully developed and avoids damaging the ocean floor.
However, Grieve suggested that recent "unnecessary" changes to the rules around diving for scallops and more treacherous sailing conditions, caused by global warming, had reduced the time he could be out fishing.
Grieve noted: “It certainly suits some people to not have divers down on the seabed witnessing the damage that's being done on a daily basis. Whether or not this is the case, the loser is the sea, as health and safety legislation moves ever in favour of bigger boats fishing in ways that are damaging to the marine environment. And hand dived scallops will become increasingly difficult to find.”
Grieve revealed that there is also a “general decline in shellfish stocks” which he blames on the result of poor “fisheries management”.
He argued that the “damaging fishing methods such as scallop dredging and trawling", let the decline continue and has been “decimating our inshore fisheries”.
However, Grieve revealed the company will re-establish itself as another kind of marine business.
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