Menai strait fishers hope deal will bring back EU business

Rising out of the water, nets bulge with thousands of blue mussels. Pulled back to the dredging boat, they are emptied into a hopper and rinsed with water.

- Joanna Partridge

They have just been harvested from the bottom of the Menai strait, which separates the north Wales mainland from Anglesey.

On a blustery, damp morning, Alan Owen guides the 43-metre Valente out of Porth Penrhyn, just outside Bangor, towards the mussel grounds.

"Our geographical position makes this probably the best place in Britain for producing mussels," Owen says, pointing to the boat's screen, where the different colours display the areas where several companies are licensed to harvest the shellfish.

"It's because of the tidal exchange going through the Menai strait, it gets up to six knots in the middle there," he says.

"You've got a massive volume of water exchanging both ways, bringing in the food and nutrients that the mussels like." These natural advantages helped turn the eastern Menai strait into the largest mussel farming area in Britain from the 1960s onwards, employing dozens of local people including Owen's father and uncle.

Over the years, as production increased, the vast majority of the mussels were sent to Europe, where diners - especially in France, Belgium and the Netherlands - tend to eat more shellfish.

Britain's shellfish industry is small and specialised, valued before Brexit at less than £12m a year, but one that is crucial for some coastal communities.

Britain's departure from the EU closed off most access to the lucrative European market and has all but ended the industry in the Menai strait. Mussel production has collapsed from about 10,000 tonnes annually to just five tonnes in 2022.