Iceland Seafood International – Invests in Significant Processing and Coldstore Capacity in the UK

We are today announcing a significant investment by Iceland Seafood International (Iceland Seafood) in its UK operations.

Iceland Seafood’s two UK subsidiaries Iceland Seafood Barraclough Ltd and Havelok Ltd will be combined as one legal entity, under one leadership team on a single manufacturing site. We have today secured the purchase of the previous 5 Star Fish Site on Great Grimsby Business Park, which provides 100,000 sq./ft of processing area and a 4,000 pallet Coldstore. Following a period of refurbishment, we are planning to transfer both the existing Havelok and Iceland Seafood Barraclough operations to the site. This process will be complete by early 2021, by which time we expect to have created no less than 30 new jobs.

The business will be led by our 2 existing UK Managing Directors; Peter Hawkins and Danny Burton, with Peter heading up the total operation and Danny overseeing the refurbishment of the site and operational teams. The business will be named Iceland Seafood UK (ISI UK).

Bjarni Ármannsson Iceland Seafood’s Chief Executive Officer said ‘following our NASDAQ main market listing in Iceland in October 2019 we raised €15.2m of new equity and announced our intent to make strategic investments in our key markets. The announcement today represents one of these. We have strong businesses and management teams in the UK and with the continued support of our existing customers, our people and our suppliers are confident that we can become stronger as a result of the merger of the 2 businesses on a new, large, well invested site. We look forward to growth in both our existing retail and food service markets and within this increasing the opportunities for Icelandic products in the UK market.’

Peter Hawkins, Managing Director of Iceland Seafood UK Ltd said ‘today’s announcement represents a very significant investment and vote of confidence by ISI PLC in the UK market and our team. We look forward to taking the best of our Bradford businesses sourcing expertise and Havelok’s manufacturing excellence to deliver outstanding quality and value to our existing retail and food service customers. The move represents a significant opportunity for all of our people to be part of what we anticipate becoming a leading UK fish and seafood manufacturing site.’

Danny Burton, Director of Iceland Seafood UK said ‘When we set Havelok up it was important to have the correct partners to allow us to reach our ambitions of becoming a leading supplier of seafood delivering excellent service, quality and innovation to the market and the support of Iceland Seafood through our journey has allowed us to meet our goal.  This significant investment underlines Iceland Seafood’s commitment to Havelok and the UK seafood market and gives us the opportunity to build on the outstanding values of the Havelok team and offer a level of service and supply that is second to none.’

The refurbishment, merger and product transfer process will be complete by early 2021.