Salmon producer Loch Duart has been repeatedly forced to turn business away this past year as it grapples with acute labour shortages that have beset Scotland’s food and drink sector in the wake of Brexit.

The revelation by production director Russell Leslie following a visit by local MP Ian Blackford further underlines the crippling problems faced by food manufacturers in particular after an estimated 1.3 million people from overseas left the UK during the pandemic. Industry leaders say post-Brexit immigration policy has made it all but impossible to replace those lost workers.

Loch Duart, which has salmon farms in Sutherland and the Outer Hebrides, spent £2 million on a complete refurbishment of its processing facility in Dingwall in 2020. The 50,000sq ft plant currently produces 6,000 tonnes of salmon annually, but Mr Leslie said there is capacity for “much more”.

“In the last 12 months, due to staffing, we have had to turn down multiple opportunities to process other fish producers’ fish, [and] we’ve also had to stall our own new product development resulting in missed opportunities in the marketplace,” he said.

The Herald: Ian Blackford with Alec Macmillan (left) and Russell Leslie of Loch DuartIan Blackford with Alec Macmillan (left) and Russell Leslie of Loch Duart

Owned by US investment fund Vision Ridge Partners, Loch Duart currently employs 160 people. The company said despite offering enhanced conditions, subsidised transport, and pay levels above the Living Wage, it cannot secure the staff it needs.

Speaking after Mr Blackford’s recent visit, Mr Leslie said it was a “good opportunity” for the SNP Westminster leader to witness first-hand the recruitment struggles of Loch Duart and other local companies.

“It also gave Loch Duart the chance to highlight the need for more to be done to ease labour shortages across Scotland,” Mr Leslie said.

“We are rightly proud of the exceptional standard to which we can now process and package our salmon, due to the skill of the Dingwall factory team. There are real opportunities for development in jobs like those at our Dingwall factory.”

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The company made a £3.5m loss on sales of £31.2m during the year to March 2021, according to latest accounts filed with Companies House. That was down from a profit of £1.8m the previous year, with the decline the result of the slump in export and food service markets during Covid lockdowns.

Director Shan Saba of Brightwork Recruitment, which handles approximately 40% of outsourced staffing activity across Scotland’s food and drink sector, said Loch Duart’s problems are “very common” in rural areas where a lack of affordable housing and sparse populations exacerbate staffing issues.

He said the current crisis is “purely down” to Brexit: “The only thing that Covid did was speed up the inevitable significant tightening of the labour market.”

He added that companies which have been most successful in managing these issues are those offering “complete flexibility”, including weekends only, one day per week, student-friendly and family-friendly shift patterns.

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“It is the UK labour force that we need to concentrate on now, and what do UK workers want? They want flexibility,” he said.

Other leading Scottish food brands have also warned of Brexit’s impact on their business, such as Aberlour-based Walker’s Shortbread. In October of last year, director Jim Walker said the company was suffering from acute staff shortages as it was unable to replace departed workers from overseas.

Mr Blackford said he will be seeking a meeting with UK Government ministers to push for a relaxation of immigration rules following his visit to Loch Duart.

“The company has ambitions to grow and be an integral part of the local economy but it is clear to me that the company is being held back by inflexible immigration policies that are hampering the ability of the company to recruit foreign workers to complement the current locally-based workforce,” he said.