In this series focusing on the region’s businesses and entrepreneurs, Emily Gulliver from Thrings visits the “Codmother” who became a national TV star
Hayley Elston began the Fabulous Catch Company after helping fishermen on the Isle of Wight make the most of their catches. Now based in the New Forest, and with a national profile after winning a Channel 4 TV competition, she’s on a mission to begin a ‘sustainable revolution’, one fishcake at a time.
Following a long career as a food projects consultant, Hayley helped set up the Yarmouth Fishermen’s Association, now the Needles Fishermen’s Co-op, over a decade ago.
"One of the fishermen’s biggest areas of waste was brown crab meat,” she says. “Everyone wants picked white crab meat, but brown crab has much more flavour, so we developed what was the beginnings of our crabcake.
“We also made a crab pasty and a crab bisque with the shells, and a white fishcake. We took our products across the water to the farmers markets in Fareham where they were an instant hit. We couldn’t make enough.”
Hayley also created the now legendary Fabulous Festival Fishy Finger Sandwich, made entirely from the catch of the Fishermen’s Co-op.
The runaway success of her products – including a Fabulous Festival Fishy Finger Sandwich made especially for Camp Bestival – meant Hayley could no longer sustain two jobs, and so the Fabulous Catch Company was born.
"I had a meeting with the fishermen and told them it was a business that could run, and I said I wanted to set up that business and buy their fish,” says Hayley. “That’s how it started, and it went on from there.
Hayley and the business moved off the island at the end of 2016 to Calshot, where, together with her business partner Herbert Berger, a three Michelin-starred chef, she produces award-winning gourmet, hand-mixed fishcakes, with seasonal specials, and a vegan, gluten-free Seacake, made with seaweed and samphire.
In April, the self-styled ‘Codmother’ of the fishcake business beat hundreds of other hopefuls – including rapper Stormzy’s personal chef – to win Aldi’s Next Big Thing, a Channel 4 competition that gives small food businesses the chance to shine.
A new iteration of the original zero-waste Crabbie Crabcake, the Crabulous Crabcake was created especially for Aldi in response to their request for Hayley to scale up her product while retaining flavour and consistency.
The revised crabcakes, which delighted judges with their texture and flavour, won the Fabulous Catch Company an order to supply Aldi with 60,000 units rolled out across 960 stores.
“I’m thrilled that even more people will be able to discover what we do, thanks to the show,” says Hayley.
“This is just as much of a passion for me today as it was at the beginning: creating the finest handmade sustainable UK produce possible, and making your tastebuds happy!”
