A DALGETY BAY couple's plunge into business has proved a success.

After meeting while working at Deep Sea World, husband-and-wife team Errin and Keith Todd set up Todd Fish Tech in 2015 when they developed a unique transportation system for shellfish.

They are now set to meet a £1 million turnover target after lockdown has resulted in a flurry of new orders from around the world.

Chief executive Errin said they have had to nearly double their staff since moving their operation to their brand new, 3,500 square-feet facility at Hillend Industrial Estate at the beginning of lockdown.

"We now have a team of seven and that team will be nine by the end of the year – we had five at the end of lockdown," she said. "We closed down for nine weeks and we came back to more orders.

"Thankfully, a lot of our customers used coronavirus grants to buy our equipment. When grants started coming out, we had a huge upsurge in enquiries and lots of orders."

For five years, the team has been developing and selling its Lobster Pod, which allows fishermen to keep the creatures in the specially-made tanks at optimum conditions so that they don't have to sell them immediately.

After this proved a success, they have gone on to create systems for crabs and other shellfish, including oysters and mussels.

"What fishermen would do before was put them in keep," Errin explained. "When they wanted to bring them ashore, they would take their boat out to the keep and bring them in. That has a lot of challenges – it was not really great on the lobsters because they could get quite distressed. By bringing them on shore, they could supply the demand but to make sure they were always great quality was still some challenge.

"We have been working with customers for a long time and realised that our system needed little maintenance. We developed the lobster pod and it is like a penthouse for lobsters.

"We know fishermen don't have time to operate fancy filters. It is so simple. The main thing now is the customer is happy, the fisherman is happy and the animals are really happy. They are in the dark, in fresh water and the survival rate is phenomenal.

"Fishermen can now keep lobsters and crabs for up to six months and doesn't have to do very much. It keeps them in perfect condition."

A patent is now pending for the Lobster Pod and former St Columba's High pupil Errin said the popularity for all their products was growing throughout the UK and further afield.

"There is no-one else in Europe who, as a company, store shell fish – we are unique. That is unusual and our main competition is DIY," she added.

"It has been a rollercoaster and it is definitely because of the lobster pod where we got the product right. We solved a problem for the industry and it really took off and it has been really exciting ever since.

"We aim to keep growing the business but growing it in a sustainable way. We want to make sure we have got a good team and it is sustainable."