Scotland is the No 1 langoustine producer in the world.

The company started looking into exporting to the Chinese market in 2010, and the movement was accelerated by the collapse in the European market and the affinity of the sales director, David Markham, for China.

"The Chinese market clearly loves all crab and imports a variety from around the world. Our season happily coincides with the Chinese New Year market, which works well for us. The Chinese market is very important for our business, and we are looking to increasing our capacity to try to satisfy demand," says Markham.

Although the company sells only whole crab to China, its business is mainly crabmeat. "We are very keen to introduce our fantastic crabmeats to the domestic Chinese market and also the international hotels and restaurants in China," Markham adds.

The Scottish government realizes that in order to export its produce, one of the best ways is to introduce its natural larder to chefs.

As part of a celebration for the Year of Food and Drink Scotland 2015, the Scottish government, the Federation of Chefs Scotland and the Scottish Seafood Collaborative group invited the Hong Kong Chefs Association and the winner of the Scottish recipe challenge to Scotland for a week of culinary sharing and industry insight.

Anita Cheng, international team manager at the Hong Kong Chefs Association and one of the delegation members, says: "Having done my research on different sites and farms that we were to visit, I found they turned out in some ways better."

Cheng was impressed with the clean water and fresh seafood, saying: "The people we met serving these operations are really passionate about what they are doing and they have represented Scotland well."

The farms are smaller than expected, those who visited say, and may be challenged by other international producers. Cheng says given that the quantities they produce is not large, "the best strategy would be to move into a more niche market instead of the mass market, focusing on markets that treasure high quality ingredients with a big supply of good professional chefs who master the skills of seafood cuisine.

"Cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai would probably be the best bet for success as people there are willing to pay premium prices to many different countries for their premium products. Scotland offers a quality alternative and needs to work with local professional chef bodies to create the Scotland seafood experience."

wangmingjie@mail.chinadailyuk.com

( China Daily European Weekly 07/03/2015 page20)