There aren’t many families in Scotland , or anywhere else for that matter, which can boast five generations in the same business. Something invariably happens, usually in the third generation, to bring it all unstuck. The Sutherlands of Portsoy are an honourable exception. Since the turn of the 20^th century, generation after generation has steadily built up a business which is now ranked among the most successful family enterprises in Britain . The Sutherlands may have started out as humble fishermen, but now their ultra-modern factories send the very best Scottish salmon all over the world. With an annual turnover of £2.5 million, 40 employees and no debt, the Sutherland family company, Gourmet’s Choice, is set to expand into burgeoning international markets.

The driving force behind the company’s most recent expansion is Managing Director, Alex Sutherland. At the moment, he says, 70 per cent of the business is conducted within the UK with 30 per cent in export. Within five years he expects those figures will be reversed. Much will depend on the Sutherland family’s ability to deliver the consistent quality which has been the company’s signature for many years. “There’s a lot of poor quality product in the market,” Mr Sutherland said, “but we’re not interested in anything other than the best. We’re servicing the top end of the market so we have to maintain a constant focus on quality. It’s expensive, but that’s what we’re famous for and that’s what we will continue to deliver”.

Gourmet’s Choice began in humble circumstances at the turn of the 20^th century when Alex Sutherland’s great-grandparents, Daniel and Joan Sutherland, set about selling the fish they caught in the waters of the Moray Firth . “My great-grandfather kept a small fishing boat at Sandend about three miles west of Portsoy”, he said, “and every time he went to sea my great-grandmother would be there to help him launch the boat. To make sure he got aboard the boat dry-shod she used to carry him on her back, down the sandy beach and into the water. Then she’d push the boat out through the waves. That was the tradition up and down the Moray coast for many years: the fishwives always carried their husbands to their boats. I think it had a lot to do with the local superstition that it was bad-luck to go to sea with wet feet. Fortunately my great grandmother was a big strong woman. She certainly needed that strength. When my great grandfather came home with his catch, mostly cod and haddock, she would gut and clean the fish and pack them in a wicker creel. With the creel strapped to her back she’d go out and sell the fish door-to-door. If there wasn’t enough fish from Sandend she’d walk the three miles to Portsoy to get them from the boats over there. They bartered fish for butter and milk and eggs from the farms around about. People talk about the ‘good old days’ but I can’t see any good in them. It was heavy, hard work, but that’s how the business started”.

Alex Sutherland’s grandparents followed suit, fishing and selling their catch do to door. In the 1930s his grandfather made the first significant improvement to the business by building a small smokehouse in which the fish were hung up on tenter-hooks and slowly cured by a traditional cold-smoking technique which used the distinctive, pungent smell of smouldering oak and beech wood shavings and sawdust to enhance the flavour of the fish.

“The fish would be in the smokehouse for up to four hours”, Mr Sutherland said, “depending on how strong a taste they wanted. The local preference was for very heavily smoked fish, but others, who lived further afield, preferred a lighter smoke. So, from a very early stage it was recognised that the customers’ taste preference had to be catered for. Little by little we began to earn a reputation for quality. When my father came into the business he bought vans and employed drivers to take the fish to a wider market. He never went out fishing. Instead, he purchased the very best fish, processed them and had them taken out to regular customers as far away as Aviemore and Inverness . Although our business has shifted more toward hotels and catering establishments over the years, we still have a couple of vans on the road to provide that basic door-to-door service”.

Alex Sutherland was taken into the family business straight from school. “My father started me in the factory the same as everyone else,” he said. “I was not the boss’s son. I was just another worker with a boning knife. No airs and graces were allowed. I had to get on with the workers and learn the business from the ground up. In those days it was mostly whitefish that we were processing, but from time to time, with the great salmon rivers, the Spey and the Deveron, not far away, we’d have toffs come in with the wild salmon they’d caught. Could we smoke them? Oh, aye. That was the start of our interest in salmon. I could see that there was likely to be problems with the supply of whitefish so when salmon farming was introduced in the Highland lochs we took the best of the farmed product and smoked it using our own secret recipe. People liked it and the business grew and grew. Now it’s pretty much all salmon. These days we source most of our salmon from Shetland. There, the strong tides and the cold, clear waters of the North Sea make a significant difference to the quality of the fish and that is precisely what we’re interested in. We pay more for Shetland salmon, but it’s worth it. We’ve always traded on quality. That’s our signature. It may not be the cheapest, but I can guarantee it’ll always be the best. ”

Both of Alex Sutherland’s sons now help to run the business in Portsoy where the Gourmet’s Choice factory is one of the biggest local employers. The family has invested heavily in state of the art heading, filleting and slicing machines and over the last four years they have seen a 32 per cent increase in their business. “We’re world-wide now,” Alex Sutherland said. “We’re supplying nine countries, but this is really just the beginning. In five years time we aim to have 70 per cent of our business in export and I see no reason why that can’t be achieved”.  

Gourmet's Choice smoked salmon is now available in Australia through Scots Heritage.  Details.

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