From hand catching to hand slicing... I was born on a small sheep farm in Penruddock, a small farming community near Penrith in Cumbria. It was a different era, no mobile phones or computer consoles, and our playground was the surrounding fields and rivers. My elder brother, Symon Grant Brown, soon taught me to catch salmon from the river Glendermackin using just my hands and a ‘tailer.’ I can still remember the thrill of plucking such beautiful fish from the water, and the extra excitement of escaping the attentions of the river bailiff. Even then I knew every salmon was precious and should not be wasted. I soon taught myself to cure and smoke the fish, just as people had been doing for centuries, and we still use the same traditional methods at Grants today. When I left school, at 15 and a half, it was a natural step to turn my passion into a fledgling business. In 1984 I opened Grants in Maryport with a friend, assisted by £12,000 from Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, which was trying to boost the local economy. I was taught the finer arts of smoking by Master Smoker Roy Martin from Gretna and there we were, tiny premises, no cash and not much of a clue about business. We started out smoking and hand slicing individual fish and delivering them to local hotels. Fish by fish, mile by mile, we built the business. Of course, we had competitors, but I had always known quality was key. If we supplied people with the best smoked salmon, as a reasonable cost, why would they go elsewhere? Our reputation grew and so did our business. From single hotels we began supplying local wholesalers, then as word of the business spread, we gained customers across the UK. We moved from our tiny premises into a slightly bigger facility. Then a bigger one again. Our team grew and grew and at our two large sites, I now employ some of the grandchildren of the very first members of staff. Nothing makes me prouder. We knew technology could help us and we soon built ourselves a reputation for innovation. We were among the first companies to use laser slicers and vacuum packaging but the key to our success was always the same – the finest quality salmon smoked in the traditional way. In whatever ways the industry changed over the years, our commitment to those principles did not. No machine can beat the knowledge of the very best Master Smokers who understand fish, kilns and how to get the best taste from each salmon. Having firmly established ourselves in the UK, I thought “why not the world?”. I was nothing if not ambitious. But the quality of our salmon and our customer service crossed language barriers and soon we were supplying customers in Italy, then France and further afield. With more customers we needed more salmon, and here was another key to our success. We could have bought the cheapest fish and tried to maximise profits. We could have used cheap salmon grown quickly and fed antibiotics. We could have used chemical smoke rather than real wood chips. But instead, we decided to only use traditional methods, and to only to use suppliers with the very best fish, raised in the best environmental conditions. It cost us more and sometimes we would go to the far corners of the globe for the best, most responsibly raised salmon. But our commitment to quality paid off and now we are proud to supply food service, manufacturing and retailers right across the globe. If you go on a cruise ship in America, or walk into a store in Australia, then you could be enjoying Grants smoked salmon, safe in the knowledge you are buying the best. We are proud to have been a family firm and supplied jobs and helped the economy in Maryport for more than 30 years. We are a family firm and that family includes our staff, customers and contacts right across the globe. Grants has come a long way but most importantly of all, we know those first chefs in small Lake District hotels who bought our first salmon would still recognise the taste, quality and traditions of the salmon we supply today.
