When Peterhead's fishermen arrive back in port with their week's catch they often have less than 24 hours before they're back out at sea – so we have a dedicated Boats team working to make sure they're loaded up with all the supplies they'll need.
Sian Strachan and Leanne Low at our Peterhead store use WhatsApp to keep in touch with the trawlermen, who let them know when they're heading back to the port so our team can make sure everything's ready for them at the harbourside.
Jonathan Cordiner, who's cook and deckhand on the trawler Harvester, said: "I cannot praise Asda enough – everything is "no problem" with Sian and Leanne. After a long hard week at sea it's great to find the Asda team waiting with everything we need for the crew's next trip. We need a lot of food to keep hungry fishermen fed!"
"We get more or less everything we need from Asda - fruit, veg, bread, meats, dry goods and frozen. We cook anything from roasts, curries, pastas, chicken dishes. The biggest challenge is cooking in bad weather."
The trawlers go out in twos or threes to fish for cod, whiting and haddock and are usually away for a week at a time. They go out all year round except Christmas and when they stop for repairs, with the crew working three trips on, one trip off.
Sian said: "I enjoy working on the Boats team – it gets me out and about and I like meeting everyone.
"There are a lot of Filipinos working on some of the boats and they do like their hamwiches! I hadn’t heard of a hamwich until I started working on the Boats team – it’s frozen and it’s ham and cheese in batter that you deep fry. The Filipinos like to eat them in a “softie” – a bread roll."
Asda Peterhead's Community Champion Zoe Scarisbrick says everyone at the store is proud of the fishing crews and happy to help them however they can.
She said: "Leanne and Sian do a fantastic job organising boat orders and delivering them to the port. The fisherman will place their order 24 hours before delivery date. This isn't always possible as the boat will come in and land and then head back out to sea, so Leanne and Sian have created WhatsApp groups for boats to message in their store list to place their orders. The order is then picked, scanned through the checkout, packed into totes ready to be delivered. The crew then load the groceries on to the boat."
