Louth seafood company Morgan’s Fine Fish has launched a range of microwaveable meals, as the family business takes the challenges of Covid-19 in its stride.

The ‘Morgan’s Seafood Kitchen’ range includes three complete seafood meals for one, including Katsu Fish Curry, Caribbean Prawns and Spicy Lemongrass and Lime Seafood. The meals are nutritionally balanced, with raw seafood, fresh vegetables, rice and sauce, and are microwaveable.

The Morgan’s meal range is currently stocked in select Dunnes Stores, SuperValu and independent outlets around the country.

Gillian Morgan, new product development manager with Morgan’s Fine Fish, said that support from the Taste 4 Success Skillnet Ireland ReBound programme was vital to the successful product launch.

Focusing specifically on SMEs in the food, agri-food, seafood and beverage sector, the Taste 4 Success Skillnet ReBound programme provides resources to help with PR strategies, the safe reopening of businesses and skills competencies among staff.

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“Morgan’s Fine Fish has been a family business for 160 years and we have been supplying seafood to retailers and foodservice customers for over 30 years,” Morgan explained.

“We have faced many challenges over that time, but nothing could have prepared us for Covid-19. We had spent considerable time and investment in developing our first ready-to-cook retail range just before the pandemic hit.”

Morgan added that lockdown restrictions ruled out planned in-store tastings to promote the Morgan’s Seafood Kitchen range. “Funding from Taste 4 Success Skillnet and excellent training from our mentor Vivienne Gleeson helped us to develop our communications strategy. This allowed us to move on to secure PR expertise to successfully launch.”

The ReBound programme ran from June to October and is one of several initiatives run by Taste 4 Success Skillnet, which is co-funded by Skillnet Ireland. The focus was on assisting SMEs in implementing the ‘Return to Work Safely’ Protocol and to help these businesses navigate a secure recovery.

In addition to the ReBound programme, Gillian Morgan also benefited from a place on the Taste 4 Success Skillnet Masterclass series in partnership with Trinity College Dublin’s Tangent Ideas Workspace.

“Innovation is a key part of any business, and as we work with a highly perishable product, innovative ways of prolonging shelf life, packaging and logistics are always top of the agenda for us,” said Morgan.

“To get further support from Taste 4 Success Skillnet to upskill in this area and to become a professional alumni of Tangent is an amazing achievement for me personally and for the company.”

Bridie Corrigan Matthews, network manager for Taste 4 Success Skillnet said that Skillnet Ireland’s main focus pre-Covid was on training and upskilling SMEs in a number of business areas. “This work continues; however, we have also added a number of key initiatives to advise and financially support SMEs so they can continue to do business during Covid.”

The Taste 4 Success Skillnet programme has supported 500 food companies to date.

Filed accounts for Seafood Processors Limited, the operating company behind Morgan’s Fine Fish, show that it had revenue of more than €16m in the year to April 2019. The business booked a net profit of €810,000 and had year-end net worth of €5m. Morgan’s Fine Fish employed 81 people in 2019.

Photo: Gillian Morgan (left), with Morgan's Seafood Kitchen brand ambassador and weight loss expert Karen Daly (Credit: Julien Behal Photography)