Blackrow Engineering

Company lines up exports with new food processing technology

If you’re in the food processing business getting your chicken or fish fillets lined up can be a tricky and expensive operation. It can take several operatives just to stand by the food conveyor in order to manipulate the fillets into line manually and it’s a tedious and time-consuming business.

Now a Humber based company has found a solution to the problem with a piece of labour saving equipment which is turning the food aligning process into an exact science.

Based in Grimsby – Europe’s ‘Food Town’ – Blackrow Engineering is a specialist provider of world class competitive solutions for the food processing industry. The company has been designing and manufacturing food processing and handling equipment for 27 years. With a reputation for quality and innovative thinking Blackrow’s research and development team have designed the groundbreaking Fillet Aligner which is proving to be a ‘must-have’ piece of equipment for the food processing industry.

As soon as the machine was off the drawing board two years ago the company knew it was on to something big. Blackrow Engineering immediately signed up to UK Trade & Investment’s Passport to Export programme in readiness for a big launch into overseas markets.

Says Glenn Ritchie, director: “Once we had developed the equipment we wanted to be able to hit the ground running with it and our primary focus was the USA. We had never actually sold overseas before and the Passport programme gave us a lot of the nuts and bolts of exporting as well as useful information about the actual process of getting paid by US clients. The programme gave us a structured approach to overseas sales and it was a useful springboard into America. We also got a lot of one-to-one advice from UK Trade & Investment’s international trade adviser who came to visit us.”

The Fillet Aligner saves companies up to 50-60 percent in labour. The equipment has been in such demand in the US that is now made under licence there, giving Blackrow Engineering an opportunity to continue its US expansion while developing other overseas markets.

Last year the company attended the European Seafood Exhibition (ESE) in Brussels. Held every year, the ESE is the largest trade fair of its kind for the seafood industry and UK Trade & Investment was able to identify Yorkshire Forward funding to help Blackrow make the most of the event.

Says Austen Ward, international trade adviser for UK Trade & Investment based at Humber Business Link: “We were able to locate some funding under the Targeted Export Support Scheme (TESS), run by Yorkshire Forward, to help Blackrow Engineering showcase the Fillet Aligner to a wider international audience. Big international trade fairs such as this seafood industry one in Brussels are not only fantastic marketing opportunities but they keep companies in touch with the latest trends and developments in the industry worldwide.”

The TESS programme supports companies trying to penetrate new international markets or launch new products overseas and many companies in Yorkshire and Humber have been able to take advantage of the scheme for their exporting activity.

Ritchie adds: “The Brussels trade fair was very vibrant, attracting delegates and exhibitors from every sector of the industry. Apart from anything else, it allowed us to tap into a huge network of business contacts and the response to our Fillet Aligner was very encouraging.”

Blackrow Engineering also manufactures equipment and components for the chemical engineering, aluminium recycling and pharmaceutical industries. The company employs more than 80 multi-skilled personnel from design to production at its 50,000 square ft engineering workshop in Grimsby.