Labor taxes could sink family businesses like mine, says Lance Forman

The larger-than-life Lance Forman is a consummate entertainer as he shows me around his salmon smoking factory in the East End. While we put on overalls, rubber gloves and hairnets, we jokingly point to two large fish drying installations from the German company Reich.

“If I had bought another one, it would be the Third Reich,” the 62-year-old jokes, with his trademark sharp humor.

His company, H Forman and Son, has been based in London’s Docklands since 1905 and clients include Fortnum & Mason, Harrods, the Ivy and the Orient Express. Mark Hix, chef director at Caprice restaurant group, said the fish was the best in the industry and he wouldn’t buy from anyone else. It is a staple on many Christmas tables.

Forman is passionate about the family business and tells me about its history as we walk through the factory floor – weaving between women and men with very sharp knives in hand.

The walls are littered with photographs of the East End from the early 20th century, when the Docklands saw a wave of Jewish immigrants, many fleeing Tsarist Russia and later Germany. His great-grandfather, Aaron “Harry” Forman, and his brother Louis were part of that journey, having fled the pogroms in Odessa before starting the business that would last more than a century. Entrepreneurship is in Lance’s blood.

“I remember my father taking me in on weekends,” he says. ‘He taught me how to cut smoked salmon at the age of six.’

The smell of the fresh fish is sharp and immediately stimulates the senses. The temperature in the factory is almost zero and the entrails are scattered on the floor.

It’s a bustling place with local workers, but also from Eastern Europe – Cockneys and Poles shouting at each other as the fish is cut, smoked, dried and packaged for the friendly customers.

The salmon comes from Scotland and is salted and air dried to give it its smoky, delicate texture.

Each employee has one role and the work is hard, efficient and fast.

“Salmon became a gourmet food in this country in the early 20th century because of the way people like my grandfather smoked it,” he says. ‘The London cure is something that the Eastern European Jews who settled in the East End brought with them. Smoking fish was something they knew.”

Christmas is Forman’s busiest time of year and it is crucial that he meets sales targets in the coming weeks – half of annual online sales are achieved during this period. Wholesale sales for Christmas are double those of a normal month.

I ask him what kind of income he brings in during the period.

“How much money do you have in your bank account?” he shoots back. “We don’t make the numbers public, but the company is not as big as you think.”

That may be so, but the factory is large: thousands of square meters spread across the shore on Fish Island, near the Olympic stadium. The company employs 60 employees.

The original factory burned down in 1998 and the company had to relocate in 2007 after the old site was developed for the 2012 Olympics.

‘You learn to deal with that. I always tell business students: make sure you have a plan, but be flexible in the event of unexpected events,” he says.

He’s no fan of the Labor government or Chancellor Rachel Reeves, but he thinks Keir Starmer and his cronies have made a terrible start. He says: ‘People hoped they would be different, but they have no idea. It unraveled quickly and completely.”

He has genuine fears that businesses like his might have to close after the Chancellor’s Budget two months ago left UK plc in stitches about its future.

He says farmers are currently making headlines because Jeremy Clarkson and their tractors are driving around London. However, he says the biggest threat is to family businesses like his.

Introduced by a Labor government almost 50 years ago, corporate relief allows company shareholders to leave company assets to their loved ones without paying inheritance tax.

But in a major change due to come into effect in April 2026, the full company exemption will only apply to the first £1 million of a company’s assets after the death of a shareholder, with anything above that subject to 20 per cent tax . Lighting is critical, especially for businesses that already have large overhead costs.

Forman’s has an electricity bill of £400,000 a year, compared to £100,000 before the war between Russia and Ukraine began.

“I feel threatened by it,” he says of Labour’s changes. “The main reason why family businesses decide to give it all up is because the owners decide they don’t need the hassle anymore.”

For now, none of his three children appear to be taking over the company – one works in the media, the other is a rabbi, his daughter is an actress. He says, ‘Who knows? Maybe they’ll come back like salmon.”

He had a career of his own before taking over the family business, training as an accountant at PwC after Cambridge University. His first job was appraising the Polish automotive industry. He says: ‘It was the very first privatization in the whole of Eastern Europe. I was the first accountant ever to translate Polish accounts into an international format. That’s my claim to fame.’

He then had a short stint as special adviser to business secretary Peter Lilley in 1991.

His great hatred, apart from rising taxes, is red tape. His blood boils as he tells me about the hoops he has to jump through to run his salmon empire from the East End.

“We had a customer come in and he said, ‘Can we see your floor cleaning schedules?’

Forman replied, “We don’t have schedules.” So he asked, “How do we know you cleaned the floor?”

“Look at the floor,” Forman told him. ‘We wonder why our productivity is falling through the window. It’s because we’re doing all these things that don’t add value.”

He is a strong believer that if Britain were to free itself from endless regulation, the country would be more productive and companies could save on labor costs.

He lives in north London with his wife Rene Anisfeld and tells how he was banned from driving two years ago. He now takes public transport to work, even though his ban has expired.

‘I was banned because I drove 37 km/h too often in a 32 km/h zone. It’s absolutely miserable driving through London now.’

He calls the appointment of Elon Musk as an anti-administration guru in the US ‘interesting’.

Hatred of bureaucracy helps explain his pro-Brexit stance and his very public support for the Reform Party and Nigel Farage – although he has some harsh words for the current MP for Clacton.

‘Farage is not a team player. Throughout his history, he wants to take people on board, but when they come on board, he feels threatened by them. And it never works out. It’s a big deal for him and Reform UK.’

And with that, he’s off again to get business done, one smoked salmon at a time.