Connect Local talks to Richard Yates of Forth Marine Resource
What’s the Forth Marine Resource Marketing project all about?
It’s a marketing resource to highlight the quality of locally landed seafood in East Lothian. The project has 3 main aims: to deliver a balance between producing and marketing East Lothian Seafood as a premium quality brand; guaranteeing and creating industry employment and sustaining local fishing stocks. The initiative sets out to promote the industry through several marketing initiatives and collaborations to generate product profile through food tourism.
What difference has the Connect Local Regional Food Fund made to the project?
The Regional Food Fund has enabled us to create a marketing plan to deliver initiatives and imaging tailored to social media (Instagram, Facebook and Twitter) to drive tourism traffic to East Lothian. We’ve generated some high impact themes such as ‘We’re Luvin’ the Lobster’ in North Berwick and created’ lobster’ and ‘outlet themed’ sub-brands, all of which have generated high levels of engagement and traffic.
Can you share some highlights/successes to date?
We’ve created a social media campaign that has achieved 84,000 Instagram impressions and 6300 ‘likes’ since April. Our social media content and imaging has been driven by the launch of ‘Lobster Lager’ (a collaboration with Edinburgh Beer Factory) and ‘Rocketeer Beer’ (a collaboration with Eyeball Brewing), and lobster and seafood- related images – under the banners of ‘North Berwick – The Home of The Lobster’ & ‘We’re Luv’in The Lobster’
Our social media work has also influenced a major European media & travel network too – see below.
Scotland aspires to becoming a global food tourism destination. What role does the project play in that?
We think our project emphasises the importance of high quality, engaging, social media to convey the quality message for Scotland’s natural resources, but also its focus on sustainability. A German TV Channel – WELT – came to film us last month as part of a 5-day trip to Scotland. They filmed at North Berwick Harbour, The Lobster Shack, and The Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery ,purely because their researcher found us on Instagram and loved the story! The programme will feature two 50- minute articles about Scottish food on the WELT TV Channel later in 2019. WELT is the leading TV Media Channel in Germany, and it distributes content worldwide.
What single message would you give to the public about enjoying more Scottish shellfish?
It’s worth paying a small premium to support local fishermen who operate sustainably, to ensure Scottish Shellfish is there to be enjoyed by future generations.
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