A sweet expansion for buy-out island

Published on Monday 30 June 2003 01:00

THE Queen, Jack McConnell and sweet-toothed celebrities will soon be able to have their own little taste of Gigha.

The award-winning company Hebridean Toffee is set to expand by opening a new base on the island, which was bought by a community-led trust for 4 million last year.

It will employ up to six people and make a new product, Isle of Gigha fudge, which will add to the handmade Scottish tablet that the company distributes to specialised food retailers.

Among its 140 UK customers are Balmoral Castle, the Scottish Parliament, the Gleneagles Hotel, Harvey Nichols, Inverlochy Castle and Selfridges.

Production on Gigha will also help the island’s dairy farms by using local butter, and it is also proposed in future to use vanilla pods that local horticulture firms plan to produce.

Hebridean Toffee, which this month won a marketing award at the Highland Business Awards, will use one of three new business units, the first built on Gigha.

It represents a major success for the Isle of Gigha Heritage Trust, which completed the units this year in an attempt to attract new employment.

The toffee company was set on Barra up by Gerry and Karen Porter in June 2000, and now employs four full-time and three seasonal staff in Castlebay, with up to half a ton of tablet leaving Barra each week.

Mr Porter, a former musician in residence in the East Kilbride arts centre, said: "The Gigha unit will initially be opened as a retail outlet selling Hebridean toffee and local crafts and then will start the new Gigha fudge. We hope to be in full production by this time next year.

"The other advantage of going to Gigha is that we can source butter from the dairy farms. From a marketing point of view, it will be priceless as the whole thing will be almost entirely home produced."

Alan Hobbett, the trust’s development manager, said: "We are delighted to attract the company and it reflects on the island that an award-winning new business sees Gigha as an attractive place to expand."

The 4 million buy-out of Gigha from the previous laird, Derek Holt, was secured last year with a 3.5 million grant from the Scottish Land Fund and 500,000 from Highland and Islands Enterprise’s community land unit.