Finger on the dulse!
Foraging foodie’s smokey seaweed sprinkles are flying off the shelves
THE idea came to her while walking al ong a Scots beach. But when Fiona Houston decided to put her life savings into producing dried seaweed, friends thought she was ‘a complete nutcase’.
Now they have changed their tune – after Marks & Spencer decided to stock her smoked dulse.
The edible red seaweed, packed with minerals, is found in abundance around the Scottish coast.
It was while walking in the East Neuk of Fife with a Chinese friend that Mrs Houston, 48, first realised its untapped potential.
‘The tide was out and when my friend saw all the seaweed she asked why we didn’t eat it,’ she recalled.
‘In China alone, seaweed is a £ 10billion- a- year i ndustry and across China, Japan and Korea people eat it daily. We have this incredible resource but wasn’t being used.’
Her company, Mara, sells dulse seaweed packaged as an easy-touse flake.
‘We reckoned that people in Britain just didn’t understand seaweed and what to do with it,’ said Mrs Houston.
‘It has a smokey flavour and you sprinkle it on your food just like
it just you would parsley or sea salt. It’s delicious on fish, pizza or pasta and is beautiful sprinkled on chips.’
The entrepreneur, who was brought up in Gretna Green, Dumfriesshire, where her family run the Blacksmith’s Shop, set up Mara with business partner Xa Milne.
The pair put £100,000 of their own money into the venture – some- thing Mrs Houston describes as ‘a huge risk’.
Now that risk is paying off. Marks & Spencer put the produce on its shelves at the end of last month, a major expansion is under way and the rise of the business is being featured in the second episode of three-part documentary series How Scotland Works tomorrow at 9pm on BBC Two Scotland.
‘It was all of our savings but as people have taken us increasingly seriously, we’ve taken on investment and are in the process of taking in another half-million pounds,’ said Mrs Houston, who still occasionally harvests the dulse herself in the East Neuk.
The product has won over some of Britain’s most famous chefs. It was featured on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen with James Martin, is on the menu at Skye’s Michelinstarred Three Chimneys restaurant and was featured on Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood’s BBC series Pies and Puds.
‘This time last year we did our first big product launch at Harrods Food Hall,’ said Mrs Houston. ‘Now we’ve just launched in M&S after they actually came to us.’
She added: ‘What we started off foraging in a very small way is now scaling up to supply big customers.
‘I know the whole thing sounds quirky but this is something really healthy you can have on your table every day.’
‘Whole thing sounds quirky’