DUFF HOUSE ROYAL GOLF CLUB

LADIES 5 DAY OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2009

SPONSORED BY DOWNIES OF WHITEHILLS

This years ladies Open was once more sponsored by Downies of Whitehills and to comemorate the length of time that Downies have been involved with this event, the Partners decided to donate a trophy to mark this event. This year's winner was local competitor and memeber of Duff House Royal Golf Club, Laura McHardy. Laura is seen in the picture second from the left, holding the new trophy.

Mrs Helen Downie, right of the picture, was present within the club house throughout the week and presented all of the winners with their trophies at the presentation ceremony.

Downies supporting growth in the local fishing industry

Alan Downie at a charity auction at Fraserburgh fish market for the launch of a new fishing boat the Pleiades BF 155. The funds raised have been donated the the RNLI & Fisherman Mission in Fraserbugh. By the way, Alan is the "young" gent in the centre.

Downies of Whitehills is a long established family business that can trace it's roots back more than 120 years. With a long and sucessfull history of meeting our customers needs and also striving to be a fore runner in the fish industry, the Downie family have placed great faith in the business with our modern EU approved factory and shop alongside our internet facility.

It was not always this way. It all started from a small shed come cutting room that supplied the local parish to where we are today; exporting to Canada and we have, at one time, even supplied a major customer in Australia. Downies have always operated from Whitehills. Downies started to grow when we supplied markets in Glasgow,

Liverpool and Manchester with whole cod,plaice and haddock. At this time there were major changes in the industry. More and more of our customers were looking for filleted fish. It was at this point that Downies investedment in one of the first filleting machines for large cod and haddock in the country, which has proven to be a major success and is indeed the backbone of what we do now. This was part of the continued invest by the Downie family which in turn lead to the construction of a further 3 buildings to accomodate staff facilities, filleting lines, packing areas and in time, a breading line for our coated haddock & whiting fillets. This was seen as a major step for the company in moving into the value added sector, a decision that the partners supported by further investment in plant and premises.

As a suporter of local fishing boats, the fish market at Whitehills was the major source of fish for more than 110 years.

It is in only the last 10  to 15 years, as a result of the closure of Whitehills fish market, that Downies have had to source the best of the catch from other markets in places such as Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Kinlochbervie, Scrabster, Shetland, Whitby and even as far as the Faroe Islands.

The last 20 years has seen some of the biggest improvements in Downies history. It started with the building of two more large filleting units and further investment in a state-of-the-art filleting machines, graders, skinning machines and was added to by the construction of larger offices. It was at this time that our retail shop was built to its existing size as our customer base was ever increasing. Their has also been a custom built cold store which can hold up to350 pallets of frozen goods at any one time thus ensuring strict quality control.