Major grant for seafood company

A WEXFORD-based seafood company has been awarded a grant of more than €436,000 under the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) Operational Programme for the seafood sector.

The announcement of the grant, one of 13 totalling more than €3.1 million was made by the Minister for Agriculture Food and the Marine Michael Creed.

‘The grant awards will support total investment of €6.9 million in 2017. The grants are awarded under five EMFF schemes and are co-funded by the Exchequer and EU and subject to terms and conditions,’ said the Minister.

The Wexford company awarded the €436,876 grant, out a total investment of €873,752, is Kingfisher Fresh, based at Strandfield Business Park, in Kerlogue.

Brian Everard, from Kingfisher Fresh, said he didn’t wish to comment on the project at this stage.

Kingfisher says it works with the best Irish fishermen in Ireland, to source sustainable fresh seafood from deep in the Celtic Sea and the Porcupine Bank to supply the best fish mongers and restaurants, both locally and nationwide.

It says it exports to the UK, France, Spain, Belgium, and Netherlands, accessing the direct ferry link to the UK and mainland Europe via Rosslare Port.

The business, which specialises in whole prawns and whitefish products, opened in 2007.

Minister Creed said the EMFF OP is providing a suite of three development schemes for the seafood processing sector: The Seafood Innovation and Business Planning Scheme aims to incentivise seafood innovation and new product development and assist the sector with business planning, environmental management and energy efficiency; the Seafood Capital Investment Scheme supports capital investment in state of the art equipment to produce value added seafood products thus maximising the return from raw materials and the Seafood Scaling and New Market Development Scheme which gives processors the tools to diversify and develop their export markets and encourages cooperation in the sector to improve route to market structures.