Processor New England Seafood International (NESI) is investing £2 million in fitting out a new plant adjacent to its current site, after winning the contract to supply YO! Sushi’s 68 UK stores. Joii Sushi, a co-owned subsidiary of NESI, has just been awarded the contract to supply YO! Sushi’s 68 restaurants across the UK, adding to its business with other sushi chains such as Itsu and Abakado. Founded by NESI and French firm Comptoirs Oceaniques in 2013, Joii Sushi won the YO! Sushi business from M&J Seafood, the specialist seafood supply division of foodservice giant Brake Bros, sources told Undercurrent News. As a result, NESI has just extended its capacity by signing a ten-year lease on the adjacent unit to its current chilled facility in Chessington, Surrey. The new unit, which will provide an additional 11,000 square feet of production and warehousing capacity, will enable the group to continue its expansion in foodservice and retail, Dan Aherne, group chief executive, told Undercurrent.

Growth for NESI is coming from sales with UK retailers and its sushi business, supplying UK and European sushi chains and restaurants, Aherne said. The plant is set to be ready by the Autumn and NESI is starting the YO! Sushi contract from its existing site, from late July. NESI’s new site will be for high-care production of ready-to-eat salmon and tuna, with a focus on hand filleted and hand portioned product. Around 20 jobs in the plant and back office will be created. The company is financing the expansion through re-investment of earnings and its banking facilities with Barclays. “We are investing heavily in our future, through people, capacity, systems and insight as we seek to become more relevant to a wide ranging and diverse consumer group which values high-quality, ethically-sourced fish,” said Aherne. “This is Joii coming of age,” he said of the deal. Sushi is the original kaiten sushi concept in the UK and has been an innovator in its field, so we are delighted to be asked to help develop its fish range and menu.

A high quality fish offer is essential to produce great sushi and sashimi and Joii’s entire focus centers around how we convert great quality into strong sales.”jiro dreams of sushi slant Aherne said the company has invested over the last few years in its processing and its team. buy japanese futon sydney“The challenge now for the team is to build on the strong foundation we have established by translating our expertise and range of capabilities into attractive and relevant products for the customers and markets that we service.”sushi the global catch online stream NESI is the UK’s leading supplier of tuna, wild Pacific salmon, seabass and seabream and globally sourced, specialty fish to the supermarkets. yo sushi menu birmingham

Marks and Spencer, J. Sainsbury and Waitrose are major customers, as well as Asda, Tesco and WM Morrison Supermarkets. The company plans to keep focus on these areas and also look at ways to stimulate organic growth of consumption of these species’, through its role as a private label supplier. “Our deep focus on our areas of expertise and our efforts to put the consumer at the heart of our thinking is starting to unlock growth,” said managing director James Robinson, who leads the UK retail supply business following his promotion from commercial director in 2013. “We are still very much at the start of this journey but we believe there is a significant prize for us and our customers in unlocking the category potential.” Aherne said he sees this new direction of looking at ways to stimulate growth via marketing as a "third leg" for the company. "We started with sourcing and knowledge of the species we deal in, then we have also got pretty good on the operational and technical side.

The third leg, a I see it, is to look at category dynamics and look to grow consumption." In addition to the investment in the plant, NESI has made some interesting recent additions to it team. Rob Farr, who was recruited to the commercial team in April 2014 as a category director, is one of the new faces. Farr joined NESI from a role a senior buyer for Royal Wessanen, behind the UK brands Clipper Tea, Kallo and Whole Earth. Before that he was senior buyer for delicatessen for Marks and Spencer from 2008-2011 and senior buyer for produce from 2006-2008. He was also a buyer with J. Sainsbury before that, from 2004-2006. Other recent additions are Duncan Lucas as seafood specialist and Geoff Eaton, as chairman. On April 1, Undercurrent reported Fred Stroyan, founder of NESI, is handing over the group chairman role to Eaton, an experienced FMCG executive. The appointment of Eaton, who was previously CEO of chilled convenience foods manufacturer Uniq and more recently chief operating officer of Premier Foods, is to bring independent leadership to the board as it seeks to deliver international growth, the company said, at the time.

“I am as positive as I ever have been about NESI, the business that I founded in 1991,” said Stroyan. “We have an ambitious international growth strategy and I believe it is the right time to hand over the chairmanship to Geoff while I continue my commitment to NESI as the founder, majority owner and a director of the business,” he said. Eaton left Premier in February, only four months after joining, as the company got rid of the COO role and opted for a flatter management structure. He previously spent six years in the CEO role at Uniq between 2005 and 2011, during which it divested several businesses, including Pinneys of Scotland, sold to Young’s Seafood. In February, Undercurrent reported that Lucas was leaving Young’s Seafood, where he was seafood specialist for just over ten years, to join NESI. “We are delighted that such a recognized fish expert as Duncan has decided to join the business,” Robinson told Undercurrent, at the time.

“We have a mix of fish specialists and people from blue chip backgrounds on our team and Duncan will add great fish knowledge,” said Robinson, who joined New England in 2007, having worked for Proctor & Gamble and Premier Foods. Aherne is also from a blue chip background, having joined from Unilever. “We feel he [Lucas] can open up some new supply chains for us around the world in exotic fish, as well as drive more efficiency into the factory,” said Robinson. “Duncan is incredibly practical and hands-on, and added to that, he’s great with the customers.” Lucas has worked in the seafood industry for over 35 years, with experience spanning independent retailers to major supermarkets as well as primary and secondary processing of chilled and ready-to-eat seafood. He holds the Guinness world record for filleting halibut, according to the website for Passion for Fish, a consultancy he set up with his wife, Sue, in 2005. Sue Lucas works in new product development for Sainsbury’s.

In September 2013, when Aherne moved up from UK to group CEO, the company did some other internal reorganization, with former sales director Robinson becoming MD of the UK business. The company also created a subsidiary New England Seafood UK board to focus exclusively on the development of its domestic business, chaired by Aherne. It also created a group board, now to be chaired by Eaton, to oversee the New England Seafood UK retail business, as well as Joii Sushi. Iain Imray, who joined in May as group chief financial officer, also sits on the UK board, as does Linda Wood, promoted in September to technical and development director for the UK business. Lucy Blow was promoted at the time to sustainability director for New England Seafood UK and is also on the board. Steve Reeves was promoted to head of sales, whilst Dave Jones and Steve Nile have taken up newly created category director posts overseeing the performance of New England Seafood UK’s bass and bream and wild salmon categories, respectively.