Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and the Environment, Richard Lochhead cuts the ribbon to launch Lobster Pod.

We first met Richard at the first Scottish Inshore Fisheries Conference in 2013.  The conference is organised by Marine Scotland.  The audience is made up of shellfish fishermen and associated suppliers and organisations.  It is a great opportunity to meet up with friends and share best practice. In 2013 our sister company Fisheries Enhance was delighted to be awarded a contract to conduct a feasibility study on lobster hatcheries.  Our conclusion was that Marine Scotland should support the establishment of a network of lobster hatcheries around the coast of Scotland.  We believe that to have a truly sustainable fishery a range of measures should be used which include improvements to the policy and policing of the fishery and also other measure such as V-notching.  Lobster Hatcheries (using our new Todd Fisheries Technology model) could play a large part in achieving a sustainable and stable shellfish fishery. Anyway, I’m off piste, back to the main story of our launch!

After presenting the feasibility study to Richard and the Inshore Fisheries team at Marine Scotland we knew that the new live shellfish storage system was nearly ready for launch.  The Lobster Pod took years of hard work to develop and we wanted to have a bit of a celebration when it launched.  Our team discussed who would be a good ‘celebrity’ to launch the Pod and we decided Richard would be ideal as he knew the industry and had always been very supportive of our business.  We were lucky enough to win the Scottish EDGE Award and we were presented with the Award by John Swinney, Deputy First Minister.  He asked if there was anything he could do to help and we asked him to put us in touch with Richard.  Next we met our First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at an E-Spark Entreprenuering Awards ceremony (more on that another day).  She also asked what she could do to help.  Poor Richard must have felt stalked!

We were so happy when Richard agreed to launch the Lobster Pod at the International Skipper Expo in Aberdeen in May 2015.

He cut the red ribbon and gave a fantastic speech to the TV crews, photographers and Expo visitors who had come to see the official launch.  Our Business Gateway Fife Advisor, RBS and Scottish Enterprise also attended the event.  It created quite a buzz.  Lobster Pod were also mentioned by Richard in his keynote speech and Bertie Armstrong, Chief Executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation said, “The Lobster Pod is going to save the shellfish, all we need now is something to save the fishermen.”  We’ll maybe make that our next R & D project!

It was a great day and we are genuinely grateful to Richard and the Marine Scotland team for all of their support.

Best Fishes,

Errin Todd

SEA-E-O and Founder of Lobster Pod

Richard Lochhead address visitors to the Skipper Expo 2015

Richard Lochhead attracts a crowd at Lobster Pod launch

Richard Lochhead launching Lobster Pod with Dr Keith Todd and Sea-E-O Errin Todd