Meet Sea Sisters

Charlotte Dawe and Angus Cowen founded Sea Sisters with a mission to champion British fish and seafood and encourage more people to enjoy domestic species from around the UK coastline.

Their sustainable canned seafood business is based near Bridport in West Dorset and produces handcrafted ‘British Conservas’ using seasonal fish and seafood ethically sourced from British fisheries.

The couple received finance through the British Business Bank’s Start Up Loans programme, delivered with support from Business Support Partner SWIG Finance. They initially received loans of £25,000 each, followed by second loans, with the funding helping them establish their cannery, expand their range, and grow the business.

The idea for Sea Sisters was born during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, when Charlotte and Angus’s jobs in hospitality ended overnight and they found themselves at home with their two young daughters. They began a fortnightly shopping ritual of stocking up on store cupboard favourites for family meals, including the canned fish they all loved to eat.

But they realised that none of the fish they were buying was canned on home soil or used the British fish they knew were readily available. That sparked their ambition to preserve and can British fish in the UK, and Sea Sisters – named after their two daughters – was born.

Angus had previously worked as a chef at acclaimed London restaurants including Trullo and Rochelle Canteen. Having experienced ‘Conservas’ – artisanal high-quality canned fish – while travelling across Europe in their 20s, they began learning the craft of canning from scratch, testing and experimenting in their tiny kitchen in Hackney.

After proving the concept through a micro-cannery in London, they moved to the Jurassic Coast in West Dorset in 2023, where they established their craft cannery with sustainability, flavour, and championing the British fishing industry at the heart of the business. 

Today Sea Sisters employs 15 people and produces a range of handcrafted British Conservas including Cornish sardines and hake, Welsh cockles, Norfolk whelks, mussels, trout, and pot-caught cuttlefish. 

They salt, smoke, and steam all their own fish and every can is individually hand-packed, wrapped, and labelled in distinctive and recyclable packaging. The business works closely with fishing communities, basing its sourcing on seasonality, provenance, and sustainable fishing methods, helping customers understand not just what they are eating but where and how it was caught. Fish skins are composted for use on local farmland, while waste shells are given to artists to use in their work.

Sea Sisters products are now stocked by more than 300 retailers across the UK, including Selfridges and independent delis and specialist food shops, as well as being sold directly to customers online. The business also has a pop-up shop in East Street, Bridport, until the end of the year.

Sea Sisters was named among Observer Food Monthly’s “30 things we love in the world of food, 2025”. The business has also featured on ITV’s This Morning, Prue Leith’s Cotswolds Kitchen and BBC’s Escape to the Country, and most recently appeared on Dragons’ Den.

Although they left the Den without investment, the Dragons praised Charlotte and Angus for their passion, energy, and the performance of the business. Steven Bartlett described the couple as “incredibly investable” and Sea Sisters as “performing well” and “going places”, while Jenna Meek told them: “You guys are amazing. This is going to do amazing.”