Seaweed chips from Caithness to be stocked at Sainsbury's stores south of the border
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A food company with a base in Wick has secured a deal to get its seaweed chips stocked at a major supermarket chain in England.
New Wave Foods, which trades as Shore Seaweed, is being included in Sainsbury's Taste of the Future initiative.
As a result, the firm will have its seaweed chips stocked at selected Sainsbury's stores across England this winter.
The good news for the company comes after recently getting its products into the supermarket’s outlets across Scotland and shortly after Shore won a Great Taste award for its Sweet Sriracha Seaweed Chips.
The edible-seaweed business, which has its headquarters in Alness, has revamped its bagged snack range and expanded it with several new flavours as it aims to increase its share of the plant-based food market.
Shore uses four types of seaweed for its products. The seaweed is hand-harvested in a sustainable way and dried in Caithness, while some orders are despatched from Wick as well. It has six staff at its Wick base, although that number could rise to 11 next year as the company continues to expand.
Shore managing director Keith Paterson said: "Our success is based on creating tasty, plant-based seaweed snacks and foods that appeal to the increasingly mainstream health-conscious consumers who are seeking sustainably sourced, better-for-you snacks that do not comprise on taste.
"Our mission is to create an edible seaweed industry of scale in Scotland that is 100 per cent sustainable, good for the coastal environment and beneficial for our local communities."
The product line includes seaweed and nut protein clusters, seaweed chips in three flavours and five varieties of pesto and tapenade sold in jars.
The company recently secured funding of £1.7 million to launch new plant-based snacks and to revamp its existing range.
It received £600,000 from the Scottish Investment Bank and a similar sum from private investors. A further £500,000 is to come from Highlands and Islands Enterprise, although it will be "drawn down over a number of years", according to the company.
The funding will result in five new jobs being created in Wick. The company started in 2015 with the Shore brand set up two years later.
Apart from developing its range of snacks and foodstuffs, the company is also keen to sell the seaweed to other food manufacturers in the UK and parts of Europe.
