WHITBY Seafoods has recruited 11 new staff after increasing sales of its products nationally through supermarket giant Tesco.

The company, which employs 140 people in Whitby, announced in September that it was to supply its Whitby Scampi nationally through Tesco, after investing millions of pounds in upgrading its production facilities.

Laura Whittle, marketing and sales director for Whitby Seafoods, said that sales through Tesco have now increased from £750,000 to more than £2 million in the last year.

During this year alone, five more of their products have been listed nationally with the supermarket.

In total, the company has grown turnover from £25 million to £32 million in the last year, during which it also bought Rockall Seafoods in County Down, Ireland.

Laura said: “Ever since our products first went into local Tesco stores, we’ve seen a huge increase in sales, and that’s thanks to the support from the Tesco Local Sourcing Team. We knew that we had the capacity for a larger distribution but we didn’t know how to go about it.

“We’ve worked closely with Local Sourcing Team to build brand awareness through local marketing and on-shelf promotions and developing a gradual growth strategy.”

Whitby Seafoods was founded in 1985 by Graham Whittle, Laura’s father, from the assets of the Whitby Shellfish company.

It began supplying its Whitby breaded scampi to 20 Tesco stores locally in 2008 and within four years three of its lines were being sold in more than 700 Tesco stores across the UK.

Now the business will be featured in Tesco’s latest lorry marketing campaign, in which delivery lorries feature a map of the UK made up of a variety of local products.

Laura said: “Whitby scampi is such an iconic local product so it’s the ultimate reward to have our Whitby Seafoods featured on the new local Tesco lorries – it just shows how much we’ve grown in the last few years.”