A TASTE OF THE HIGHLANDS
Mention Scotland and chances are you’ll think of whisky first and salmon second. Maybe you’d be intrigued to discover that the two are linked, thanks to Strathaird Salmon, a member of the Macrae Group and one of Scotland’s leading producers of ready-to-eat fish products.
Strathaird’s smoked salmon is of the highest
quality because it’s Scottish – enough said. They produce
the best
for the best – including J Sainsbury’s ‘Taste the difference’ Isle
of Skye farmed smoked salmon which earlier this year was awarded 5 stars
by the Daily
Telegraph newspaper’s tasting panel of world renowned chefs and
gourmets.
The all important smoking takes place in traditional kilns where the
fish hangs for 24 hours in smoke produced from the shavings of old whisky
barrels to give that wonderful, unique flavour. The fish is then processed
and packaged in various ways to satisfy the demands of the UK’s
supermarkets who, for some time, have seen strong growth in the sale
of ready to eat fish products – especially smoked salmon. Convenience,
speed of preparation and good packaging of most food products is vital
for success and Strathaird have done all they can to ensure that their
smoked salmon is very easy to buy and even easier to use – thanks
to imaginative management, a great workforce and a very accurate, high
speed slicer, an AEW Delford Systems Polyslicer Plus.
Strathaird identified the growing ready-to-eat market some time ago and
they decided to invest in production capacity that would enable them
to serve their retail and food service customers with the right volumes
of the right, high quality products.
One such product is a 4 inch square, wafer thin salmon slice – perfect
for use in sandwiches or as a delicious starter. Mild smoked, (in oak
and beech shavings) skinless fillets are stacked and then pressed into
square ’loaves’ before being frozen down to between -7 and
-9 degrees centigrade. The frozen loaves are loaded into the gripper
feed of the Polyslicer Plus which, thanks to its fast, precise action
and an integral interleaver, produces superb, thin (1.65mm) slices of
smoked salmon at a slice rate of up to 450 per minute in stacks of 6
or 8 – all interleaved and ready for packing.
AEW Delford Systems engineering team worked closely with their colleagues
at Strathaird to find the right ‘slicing formula’ – a
combination of product preparation, temperature and consistency and,
as a result, the Polyslicer Plus performs with precise, reliable consistency;
day in, day out.
The benefits are obvious. Firstly, the workforce that used to do all
this work by hand is happier because they are employed on a wider and
more interesting variety of tasks. Secondly, the company has the production
capacity it needs
to take on more new business as well as satisfying existing customers’ ever
increasing demands. But thirdly and most importantly, more of us can
enjoy that wonderful taste of the highlands. Cheers!
