OUR PROCESS
Sea Source Processing is a wholly owned subsidiary of ANIFPO (the ‘mother ship’).
Sea Source Processing assures our customers of complete traceability from sea to distribution. Our processes are described below, from catching the fresh seafood to distributing it within the shortest time frame possible.
There is no obligation on ANIFPO’s members to land to their factory (or their fish sales company). ANIFPO/Sea Source is not a monopoly. Our goal is to stimulate market competition to achieve the best possible quayside prices for our members’ valuable catches.
1. CATCHING
We have a range of member vessels landing their catch to Sea Source in Kilkeel, from potters to semi-pelagic vessels. Our vessels target the full suite of fish and shellfish that can be harvested from the Irish Sea and surrounding waters. The most important local stock is Nephrops or Langoustine.
The methods used by our fishermen have been developed over years to ensure they catch the highest quality fish in a more efficient and more sustainable way. Catchment areas for local landings are: West of Scotland, Irish Sea and Celtic Sea. Our members do fish in waters all around the UK and Ireland.
2. LANDING
Local fishermen go out on short trips of 3-4 days maximum and fish close to Northern Ireland’s fishing harbours. Steaming time from fishing ground to harbour is approximately 4 hours, therefore fish is landed into our home ports, fresh and in pristine condition.
3. FISH MARKET
Once the catch is landed, it is stored in the chilled fish market until the auction. The fish market is located on the quay side of Kilkeel Harbour. The abundance of great quality fish each week indicates that our local fishing industry is going from strength to strength. The success of Sea Source reflects our hard-working ethos to ensure our fishermen get a fair price for their catch and hard work.
4. THE AUCTION
The auction begins at 07:30am most weekday mornings, on the fish market. Our long-established auctioneer, Brendan, keeps daily tallies of fish coming from the vessels each morning, auctions, manages sales and records all fish sold at the auction. Sea Source also has a representative at each auction, Ken, who independently purchases fresh fish for our customers throughout the UK, Ireland, Europe and beyond.
5. PROCESSING
All fish bought at the auction is delivered to our processing plants which are less than 100 metres from the market. All fish is then sorted, graded, weighed, packed, iced, labelled and palletised before distributing with all necessary documentation.
6. DISTRIBUTION
Fresh fish is loaded into refrigerated trailers and distributed to our customers, fresh and ready for use in our own reusable ANIFPO fish boxes. To comply with our environmental statement, all fish boxes must be retained by our customers and placed on a pallet in a bundle of 50, wrapped up and ready for collection by our selected shipping company. This reduces box wastage and helps to keep plastic out of our seas.
