It’s been more than 75 years since Boddam seafood manufacturer Thistle Seafoods was established. In that time, it “has gone from strength-to-strength and grown enormously.”
The family-owned company now boast two sites/factories located in Boddam near Peterhead and in Uddingston, in the outskirts of Glasgow, and employs roughly 800 people.
In addition, it also produces close to 200 different frozen and chilled seafood products for supermarkets – including Marks and Spencer (M&S) – in the UK, US and Canada.
“We do about 50 different product lines for M&S,” explains Stephen Main, commercial director at Thistle Seafoods.
“What we’ve been working on for the last 12 months with M&S is Our Best Ever Fish Pie.”
What are the ingredients to M&S’ Our Best Ever Fish Pie?
M&S’ Best Ever range offers classic everyday family favourites made with quality ingredients by its in-house chefs.
I asked Stephen, who has worked at Thistle Seafoods for 18 years, to describe the Our Best Ever Fish Pie to me.
He said: “There are a lot of (and some very good) fish pies out there. How can we claim ours is the very best?
“That’s because we use Scottish salmon from the M&S select farms, haddock which is caught in the North Sea (and smoked) by Lunar in Peterhead.
“They’re about a mile away from our factory, so it couldn’t be much fresher.
“We [also] use prawns, which come from M&S select farms around the world, and wild-caught scallops. Then we make a cheese sauce using mature cheddar and (again) Lunar smoked haddock.
“It’s topped with a creamy mash potato and finished off with some crumb mixed with Italian hardstyle cheese.”
Thistle Seafoods employs four classically trained chefs, who have all worked at Michelin-star restaurants.
“It’s a delicious product that’s been a year in the making with all our chefs working on it, as well as the chefs at M&S,” Stephen adds.
Chefs at Thistle Seafoods and M&S put hearts and soles into making mouth-watering products
The Thistle Seafoods chefs include Ciaran Lack, Dan Ellis, Che Mueller and Ross Lintott – who is the newest member of the team, joining in November 2023.
Ross has previously worked at The Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Ballathie House Hotel in Perthshire and The Peat Inn Restaurant in St Andrews. He was also head chef at Six by Nico in Aberdeen.
In order to create the Our Best Ever Fish Pie, the team had to “look at all the fish pies that are currently on the market”.
“There’s quite a lot that we need to eat our way through to establish the recipe,” says Stephen.
“The chefs will then write a recipe together on paper, and make that. A lot of testing is done in-house by them before we take the product to M&S.
“Then the chefs at M&S will say ‘no, can you change this, or change that?’ It’s a very collaborative piece of work. They’ll all pitch ideas to each other.
“To be able to call it ‘our best ever’, it needs a lot of people to sign off on the product.”
Other Thistle Seafoods products supplied to M&S include all the breaded and battered haddock, as well as the Collections Fish Pie and Salmon En Croute.
‘Watch this space’: Stephen talks the future of the business – and why he is encouraging people to join the food industry
Stephen’s love of the fishing industry stems from his father, who was a fish merchant.
“I’d always been in the seafood business,” he said.
“There was an opportunity to work at Thistle [Seafoods], so I worked my way up and today I’m commercial director. I have thoroughly enjoyed it.
“The business has gone from-strength-to-strength and changed enormously. When I joined our turnover was £20 million, this year it’ll be £160 million.
“That’s through our collaborative relationships with the retailers and our customers.
“Watch this space. Our relationship with M&S continues to grow. We’re working on some fantastic products for this Christmas and next spring/summer.”
The commercial director at Thistle Seafoods also emphasised how important roles in the local food industry are.
“Nobody thinks of food as being a career at all. In this part of the world, [people think] it’s all about oil and gas,” Stephen adds.
“What we try to do is get it out there that there are opportunities in the food business here in the north-east of Scotland, and in Scotland in general.
“It’s an absolutely fascinating business to work in, whether it’s in sales, manufacturing, production, the supply chain, as a chef, or the retail side.”
Thistle Seafoods is currently one of the largest family-owned manufacturers of quality seafood products in Europe.
For more information, visit www.thistleseafoods.com.
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