Award-winning Scottish whisky distillery announces job cuts
The maker of Isle of Harris Gin, and also the first single malt whiskies in Harris in almost 200 years, employs 50 people.
The distillery, which has won multiple awards for its single malt The Hearach, opened in 2015 with just 10 employees.
Last year, Isle of Harris won Scottish Distillery of the Year as well as Product Launch of the Year and Newcomer of the Year at the Scottish Whisky Awards.
Managing director Simon Erlanger said the spirits industry was facing "challenging headwinds" and having to make difficult decisions.
He said restructuring was needed to safeguard the future of the business.
READ MORE: We can still raise a glass to future of our whisky
Staff are being offered voluntary redundancy but compulsory will follow if cost-cutting targets are not met.
Erlanger said: "Following a number of cost-cutting measures, voluntary redundancy is being offered to staff in the first instance, with compulsory to follow thereafter if we do not fulfil our cost reduction target,"
(Image: Isle of Harris) "It is deeply regrettable we find ourselves in this situation and would like to take the opportunity to thank our entire team, particularly those affected by the changes, for their dedication and contribution to the business."
The Scotch Whisky Association said earlier this month it was "disappointed" Scotch whisky could be impacted by 10% tariffs introduced by US president Donald Trump.
The SNP said the White House's levies are set to 'hammer' the Scotch whisky industry, adding that it lost more than £600m the last time tariffs were applied in 2019 at 25%.
READ MORE: Major update on future of Summerhall as Edinburgh Fringe venue
In 2022, the Isle of Harris distillery secured £10 million in funding from HSBC to pay for a new export drive to distribute its gin to more than 20 markets around the world including the US, Canada and Germany.
Erlanger said the distillery represented more than £20m investment in the island's economy.
He added: "We remain true to our founding purpose as a sustainable, multi-generational firm built to support the community for many years to come.
"The regrettable measures now being taken are necessary to help fulfil that long term vision."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
37 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
'Sleekit' Swinney slips out £1.7m bill for army of spin doctors during by-election
The First Minister has been dubbed 'sleekit' after the average £100,000 bill for each of his 17 spin-doctors was slipped out under cover of the Hamilton by-election. The 'shameful' details were quietly released as Scotland woke up to Labour shock win over the SNP on Friday. An obscure parliamentary written answer showed taxpayers were charged more than £1.7million for 17 special advisers, known as SpAds, in the last financial year. Appointed by the First Minister, SpAds are temporary civil servants who are not bound by neutrality rules and offer explicit political advice and brief the media. Scottish Tory finance spokesman Craig Hoy said: 'The SNP have wasted a shameful amount of taxpayers' money on their army of spin-doctors. 'You'd be forgiven for thinking sleekit Swinney snuck out these bombshell figures on a day when people's minds were elsewhere.' Labour narrowly won the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection in the early hours of Friday morning by 602 votes, defying expectations that the SNP would hold the seat. The SpAd costs were released via a 'Government inspired question', a device that lets ministers make information public with minimal fanfare. On June 5, the day of the byelection, a question tabled in the name of SNP loyalist Rona Mackay asked the total cost of employing special advisers in 2024/25. The next day, as politicians pored over the result, minister for parliamentary business Jamie Hepburn, who was SNP campaign coordinator in the byelection, replied. He revealed the total cost was £1,745,042, which included salary costs, employer national insurance, and employer pension contributions. Nine SpAds were paid between £71,393 and £78,719, seven between £84,983 and £97,644, and one - most likely chief of staff Colin McAllister - between £108,781 and £116,435. Ministers are currently paid £109,584. When Ms Mackay, the MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, asked the same question last year it was not until September that she received a reply. Scottish Labour deputy Dame Jackie Baillie said: 'Scots are sick of footing the bill for an SNP government that is still failing to deliver. 'And this sleekit attempt to sneak these figures out during a by-election won't hide the fact that the SNP cannot be trusted with taxpayers' money.' Lib Dem MSP Willie Rennie added: 'The SNP are investing more effort in making excuses for their failures in government.' The SpAd bill has more than trebled since the SNP came to power in 2007, when Alex Salmond had seven full-time special advisers costing £566,000. However the cost last year was lower than 2023/24, when Humza Yousaf employed a record 19 SpAds costing £1,906,963. SpAds are exempt from political neutrality rules and can advise ministers on everything from political strategy to speech-writing and policy. Critics believe they have been central to creating a 'secret Scotland' culture within the SNP Government. In 2022, the Scottish Information Commissioner found 'significant and systemic failures' in the way the SNP Government responds to freedom of information (FoI) requests. This included evidence that many FoI responses were sent to SpAds for comment before they were issued. A Scottish Government spokesman said: 'Due to the appointment of a new First Minister in May 2024, there were several changes to the Special Adviser team. 'The number and total cost of special advisers reduced in comparison to the previous year.'
Daily Mail
44 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
STEPHEN DAISLEY: Our political class had better start learning to pass themselves off as human or Reform will deliver a nasty surprise
It's not the done thing to say, 'I told you so.' Thankfully, I've never been one for the done thing. So, to the political class: I told you so. For some time now, this column has been warning the mainstream parties against complacency towards Reform. But that complacency carried well into the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, and now it's rude awakenings all round. After the initial shock of Labour 's victory, politicians and pundits noticed something else about the result: Reform got 26 per cent of the poll. One in every four votes cast went to Nigel Farage 's candidate, Ross Lambie. He came just three points shy of the SNP. If that was replicated across Scotland in next year's devolved elections, we would be looking at a very different Scottish parliament. All of a sudden, the political establishment is very concerned about Reform and wants us to know they're Listening and Learning. Yesterday on television, viewers saw a more meditative John Swinney than usual. The Nationalists had to 'win people back' by 'delivering on the issues that people are concerned about'. The First Minister said he 'heard loud and clear' the message from the voters and recognised their priorities were the cost of living, public services, GP access and waiting lists. The SNP had to 'give people hope' on energy costs, too. He wanted Scotland to 'use our enormous energy wealth for the benefit of our people who are paying extraordinary high fuel prices'. Who knew that nuking the oil and gas industry in exchange for a few headlines could have such a damaging impact? The time for delivering on what voters care about was the past 18 years, in which the SNP has commanded the Scottish Government and its vast array of powers. The electors were loud and clear about the cost of living. The SNP raised their taxes. They were loud and clear about waiting times. The SNP continues to miss their own targets for emergency and cancer treatment. Swinney said voters needed hope. Fine. One question: why after almost two decades of SNP government are people still in need of hope? The First Minister, like his two predecessors, is a managerial technocrat. He gets the line, he says the line, he holds the line, and it doesn't matter what the line is, just as long as it's the yellow team's line and not their red or blue rivals. Whatever youthful ideals and certainties might have brought him into the SNP, the Swinney of today is in politics to be in politics. His chief contribution to the Hamilton by-election, beyond talking up Reform's chances, was the anti-'far right' summit to which he invited every party except Reform. We will probably never know what impact this spiteful display had on the voters of Hamilton, but it might have convinced some that the mainstream parties were all in it together and Reform the only challenge to their power. Just as the sight of Labour joining forces with the Tories during the independence referendum drove some Labour voters to switch to the SNP, there is a chance this gathering had the same effect. The anti-'far right' summit might well have been Swinney's Better Together. Post-election ruminations were not limited to the Nats. In a blogpost, Ross Greer advises against echoing Swinney's anti-Reform strategy, which he believes will only squeeze out his party come election time. The Greens versus the SNP. As Henry Kissinger said of the Iran-Iraq war: 'It's a pity they both can't lose.' Yet Greer says 'people are right to be angry' because 'the system is rigged' — not in favour of immigrants, but billionaires and second-home owners. He wants the Greens to take 'a greater focus on economic justice' but stresses that this shouldn't 'come at the expense of social justice'. You don't have to strain hard to see the subtext: the Greens have been stalwart on rights issues (migrants, refugees, trans people) but have let their eye off the ball on economics. Another hint that Greer will stand for election to succeed Patrick Harvie. But few Scottish politicians have been as focused on social justice as Greer. If it's not pronouns with him it's Palestine, and while these press the right buttons for the Greens' graduate, urban, professional voter base, they do nothing to confront inequalities in resources and opportunities. Greer believes the answer is 'economic justice', which is what you call socialism when you don't want to remind people of all that unfortunate business about dictators and death tolls. His prescriptions are wrong but not his analysis of the importance of economics. He frets about 'creeping fascism' but if authoritarianism takes root in economic despair, there is no fertiliser like a decadent, inward-looking ruling class. As Scottish people struggle financially, they see the Greens champion their top priorities: gender self-identification and free bus travel for asylum seekers. Economics is reasserting itself as the primary language of politics. If the Greens don't become conversant in it, they could find themselves talking to fewer and fewer voters. Popular discontent is also troubling Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay, who wrote in the Mail: 'I am listening, I get it and I understand how you feel. My party let you down in government and we accept responsibility for our mistakes.' Coming within one percentage point of losing your deposit can inspire contrition that way. Introspection would have been better deployed during the 14 years when the Conservatives delivered a toxic cocktail of high taxes and low growth, more borrowing and worse services, spiking inflation and flatlining productivity. They lost the confidence of the markets and paid a heavy political toll but nothing like the financial toll that befell ordinary families. This in itself would be enough to merit a term or two on the opposition benches, but the Tories compounded their economic recklessness by losing all semblance of control over the UK's borders. Unprecedented levels of legal and illegal migration have transformed communities, disrupted ways of life, strained services, drained budgets and provoked resentment within the native population. Nigel Farage will forever be in the Tories' debt for services rendered. Findlay didn't cause his party's woes and is making a valiant attempt to set things right. The spirit of the times is anti-establishment and a political outsider ought to be well-placed to capitalise on this, but he is shackled by the Conservatives' record in government. Findlay is gutsy. He needs more people with guts behind him. Reform's growing popularity is no great secret. A sizeable chunk of voters are drawn to Reform because it speaks about the issues that matter to them. Honestly, they're just relieved to encounter a political party that speaks to them without visible disdain. You needn't be Reform to do this. Look at the winner in Hamilton. Labour's Davy Russell is not a political smoothie. I doubt if he can recite entire West Wing scenes from memory. I don't know his pronouns and I wouldn't care to ask him. He is an ordinary bloke with an electoral mandate. His opponents derided him, the pundits dismissed him, the press disregarded him. Everyone was against him except the voters. People aren't turning to Reform for its carefully costed policy platform. They are frustrated with a political class in which everyone looks the same, thinks the same, and talks like the same dead-eyed HR manager posting on LinkedIn. I doubt my advice will be any more welcome this time, but to the political class: It's not complicated. Talk to people, listen to them, make their priorities yours, and try very hard to pass yourselves off as human.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
SNP will win Holyrood election by ‘country mile', says Swinney
John Swinney has insisted that the SNP is on course to win next year's Holyrood election despite a humiliating by-election defeat. The First Minister had claimed that the vote to elect a new MSP for the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency last Thursday was a ' two-horse race ' between the SNP and Nigel Farage's Reform UK. Both parties were beaten by Scottish Labour, which won 31.6 per cent of votes, while SNP trailed behind at 29.4 per cent and Reform came third with 26.1 per cent. Appearing on Sky's Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Mr Swinney described the loss as 'disappointing' but insisted that his party was still on course to win a fifth consecutive term in Government at the Holyrood elections in May 2026. 'If you look at the result on Thursday, all the polls are saying that if that was applied across the wider election in Scotland, the SNP would remain by a country mile, the largest political party in the Scottish Parliament,' said Mr Swinney. Labour's Davy Russell took the Hamilton seat from the SNP with 8,559 votes, compared to the SNP's Katy Loudon who came second on 7,957. Reform's Ross Lambie came away from the by-election with 7,088 votes. Speaking separately on BBC Scotland's Sunday Show, Mr Swinney said those who backed Reform, more than a quarter of the vote, were 'angry at the cost-of-living crisis'. The First Minister said that since the general election campaign last year, people he has met have sworn never to vote Labour because of the winter fuel allowance being cut, while Reform's support increased. Mr Swinney said: 'People were telling us on the doorsteps, they were giving us reasons why they weren't supporting Labour. We could also see that Farage's support was rising dramatically, and that's happening across the United Kingdom, it's not unique to Hamilton. 'I positioned the SNP to be strong enough to stop Farage, and that's what we were determined to do.' Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, appeared on The Sunday Show and branded the SNP's campaign 'dishonest and disgraceful'. He accused Mr Swinney of 'attempting to push people into the arms of Reform', following the Hamilton by-election. 'The best John Swinney had to offer after 18 years was 'vote SNP to stop Farage' – a dishonest, shameful campaign.' He said that it showed a 'lack of ambition' from a Government ' running down the clock ', adding that commentators had been 'embarrassed' by the result. Mr Swinney denied his 'two-horse race' comment was an attempt to eat into Labour's vote by spotlighting Reform and said he had been 'standing up to Farage for months'. The SNP leader indicated that he would consider a reshuffle of his Cabinet 'in due course' following the Hamilton by-election defeat, which was triggered by the death of Christina McKelvie, the constituency's SNP MSP. Mr Swinney also said he would focus on improving public services, such as cutting waiting times for GPs, and mitigating the cost-of-living crisis before the 2026 Holyrood election. Rachael Hamilton, the Scottish Conservative deputy leader, said: 'It's no secret that John Swinney has hit the panic button ahead of next year's election and is shamelessly trying to hold on to support by peddling the same tired nationalist rhetoric. 'After 18 years of broken promises and divisive politics, the SNP simply have nothing new to offer hard-working Scots.
