Whitby Seafoods: Inside the Yorkshire factory which makes a million pieces of scampi every week

The 1m portions of scampi produced by Whitby Seafoods a week are a quintessentially British product.

“The French say you are doing what with with langoustines, why do Brits do this?”, says Laura Whittle, who’s sales director at the business she runs with her two brothers, managing director Daniel and sustainability director Edward.

But “it’s part of our food culture – if we were Italians we’d stick a DOP on it (Protected Designation of Origin) on it.”

Father Graham Whittle “the godfather of wholetail scampi”, set the company up 40 years ago next year. Today he is chair of the board and “completely our sounding board”, says Laura.

Also known as Norway lobsters or Dublin Bay prawns, langoustines, caught mostly in the Irish Sea, are pale orange-pink crustaceans, similar to lobsters but a lot smaller. They are peeled and chilled in the port of Kilkeel, before being ferried to Stranraer and trucked to Whitby.

“There’s been scampi-making in Whitby since the 1960s, ladies in headscarves were making scampi at the Engine Shed, then they moved up to Larpool Lane, which is now a housing estate,” says Laura. “That’s where Whitby Shellfish company was based.

“My dad bought the business out of receivership in 1984. He saw an advert in the Financial Times and basically bought what was left. The factory hadn’t been working for six months – he said the smell was unbelievable.

“When he was doing it in the 80s, scampi was soy protein, not fish, there might have been some monkfish, might have been langoustine, if you were lucky.

“He was the first person to make wholetail scampi, it was so expensive. He was selling it for twice the price. When I speak to really old people they think it’s quite posh, they associate it with going to Berni Inn.”

Half of everything they sell is the Whitby brand, the rest is own label, which they do for all the major supermarkets except Waitrose and M&S. “Eighty per cent of what we sell is scampi, 80 per cent of that is wholetail brands. Times have changed – people do insist on the best now. Its a bit of a treat, an everyday treat.”

Not that you can call it by its name. “A lot of British people don’t like eating shellfish, they don’t want to eat the tail of anything. They love it but don’t know what it is. They are worried they will find out it is disgusting.

“The fishermen call them prawns but we can’t call them that legally because they are a species of lobster. They (the consumers) don’t want to know any of this. Its delicious scampi.”

We get shown how jumbo scampi is made at a rate of 2,000 kilos an hour. Hairnets and clean white coats are donned, jewellery removed, and boots washed before entering the factory. It takes just a minute or two for the chilled seafood to roll down a conveyor belt getting battered and crumbed twice and briefly fried, before disappearing into a freezer.

“We’ve managed to be a family business for 40 years, I’m hoping it will continue for another 40,” says Laura. “We have people who’ve worked here for 40 years, they have brothers, wives who work here.

“We all work together really well – and I always say when they (my brothers) are not listening, they are my favourite people.”