Fleetwood shellfish firm looks to more global markets outside EU

AM Seafood which employs 102 people, brings in scallops, whelks and crabs from all around the UK and processes them for export at its premises on Siding Road in the port.

At present, around 40 per cent of the company’s market is in the EU, with the Far East also important.

But since the New Year, when the new Brexit trade arrangements with the EU were implemented, AM director Mark Merrick says trade in Europe has been more challenging.

AM has not been hit by the most severe changes, which have seen some British fishing operations devastated by a new EU ban on oysters, mussels, clams, cockles and scallops caught in the UK which were previously processed by other companies within the EU.

Now such shellfish caught in most UK waters that are not ready for human consumption — known collectively as live bivalve molluscs (LBMs) — have been barred from entering the EU at all, leaving the British catchers facing potential oblivion.

Mr Merrick says this will not effect operations at AM, as the company’s exports are already processed in Fleetwood and don’t require a middleman in the EU to prepare them for consumption.

But he said: “The costs and paperwork have gone up to such an degree that it is making our trade within the EU less profitable, it is now more expensive than Asia.

“We’re going to have to live with the additional EU costs while expanding even more into the global markets than we are now.”

He added: “I totally understand the need to take back control of our waters but many of the customers in all parts of the UK seafood industry are in Europe, so at the moment we have this push-pull friction which needs to be resolved.”

AM has been in business since 1973 and was founded by David Appleby and Peter Merrick.