M Stevens & Sons, fish processors of St Ives have been awarded an Objective 1 Fisheries grant for over £20,000 to install equipment to add value to Cornish Fish.

The funds will be used to purchase a freezer room, new skinning machines and network their computer system. This will enable the company to process fish and store it to meet growing customer demand for Cornish fish throughout the year. With the computer system staff will be able to access customer information quickly to improve customer service.

M Stevens & Sons already produce the "Cornish Trio", a pack of small sized fish, Lemon Sole, Haddock and Monkfish. This has proved extremely popular and it is expected that M Stevens & Sons will expand into producing more unique fish products in the future.

Matthew Stevens, owner of M Stevens & Sons commented "These are very exciting times for the industry and especially ourselves. With the assistance of this funding we are now able to implement our long term plans and develop the business even further, with the growing customer demand. In addition the company will be launching our new and comprehensive e-commerce retail business – fishininajiffy.com. This has recently gone live and will be launched at the BBC Good Food Show at the NEC in Birmingham 26-30 November 2003."

Alison Elvey, Objective 1 Fisheries Programme Manager stated "It’s great to see a business like M Stevens & Son moving forward and selling and promoting Cornish fish. The Objective 1 fisheries programme can assist the development of fish process and merchanting and this company has taken advantage of this."