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Grimsby’s seafood sector has secured further government backing.
A £185,000 award has been made to Grimsby Institute to create a new seafood school on the main Nuns Corner campus.
It will involve refurbishment and expansion of current facilities, with improvements to a demonstration kitchen, new wet room training space and an upgrade of The Gallery restaurant to include a dedicated seafood service area. The funding follows major awards for processors in the area, as well as significant financial support for skills development at varying levels, from process entry to leadership.
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Fisheries Minister Mark Spencer said: “Grimsby has been at the heart of the UK’s fishing and seafood industry for more than a century, and the health of the town and wider community in North East Lincolnshire are intrinsically linked with the health of the industry on the quayside. That’s why the government is putting significant investment to help modernise Grimsby’s seafood industry, and help it thrive into the future.
“The funding today will help bring fresh blood into the industry and provide better training facilities for young people in the area to pursue a career in the sector. This builds on the significant investment that has already gone into the Grimsby and Cleethorpes in recent years, with £13.2 million through the UK Seafood Fund as a whole, accompanied by more than £18 million through the Levelling Up Fund. I look forward to seeing how additional funding will help the skilled and committed workers that this industry depends on as we invest to support Grimsby’s seafood sector into the future.”
HSH, now Constellation, is progressing towards a new cold store build on Europarc – with Mr Spencer coming to Grimsby to announce a £5 million support package last November – while New England Seafood, Fastnet and Seafish Processing Ltd all received backing for infrastructure projects in the last round, announced in July.
Grimsby Institute, under its TEC Partnership parent organisation, is one of seven projects to share a £3.9 million pot.
Simon Dwyer, who co-ordinates Seafood Grimsby & Humber Alliance – the umbrella organisation for the regional industry – said: “It has been an ambition of the organisation to have a seafood school in Grimsby, and this has been supported by The Fishmongers’ Company and the University of Lincoln.
“We are delighted that Grimsby Institute has been awarded this funding and we will work with them to ensure that we deliver a great seafood school with a great experience for a variety of different stakeholders, including schools; the unemployed; consumers; retailers and food service businesses that buy their fish from Grimsby. It is extremely exciting and we look forward to it being launched in the middle of next year.”
Grimsby College, as it was then, did have an advanced seafood school in the Nineties, but it was closed. After years of campaigning Humber Seafood Institute brought a high-end facility to Europarc in the late Noughties, with processing hall, rapid testing unit, shelf life testing unit and development and demonstration kitchens all part of the offer. Recent years has seen it move to a more business-orientated offer, with food manufacturer Scratch Meals having occupied the processing hall.
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