2M investment in technology for Premier

In a UK first, Premier Foods has developed premium sauces for foodservice, using patent-pending technology to cook the product inside the bottle, which ensures that the flavour is locked in.

A £2M investment in rotary retorts at its Wisbech facility, means that Premier Foods can make better quality sauce than its competitors, claimed the company.

“The bottle goes end over end in the cooker to reach optimum temperature,” said marketing manager for foodservice Rachel Bouch. The product is able to cool very quickly, otherwise you would get poor flavour, she explained.

“When you put your product into big bottles, it has a longer cooling down period, so the product has an air gap at the top of the bottle,” added development chef Justyn Dow, who assisted in benchmarking the product.

The product will fall under the Loyd Grossman brand, which already has a line of premium retail sauces. “The leading brand has the thick shiny quality of lots of emulsifiers, whereas my brand looks homemade and you can see the olive oil,” said Grossman. “When you look at the label, you won’t find any voodoo ingredients made by some mad scientist!”

The firm admitted that in the past it had neglected the foodservice arena, but claimed that this was changing. “Premier Foods is a great big commercial beast, sometimes you can forget we’re a food company,” said group sales director Ian York.

“We want to become more food driven.” He hoped that premium products would eventually make up 10% of the Premier Foods business. “In lots of areas we are playing catch up and we don’t apologise for that, but in foodservice we talk to chefs and the catering community on a daily basis.”