Northern Foods finds way to stop spuds browning

Northern Foods has stopped dipping its diced potatoes in sulphite at its Cavaghan & Gray chilled ready meals plant in Carlisle in a bid to clean up labels on potato-topped products.

In order to stop browning and oxidation of diced vegetables prior to cooking, many manufacturers historically dipped them in water containing sulphites. That left them with a residual sulphite content on the products, said Dr Andrew Fairclough, research fellow at Sheffield Hallam University’s Food Innovation Research Centre (FIRC).

However, sulphites were now on the list of allergens that must be declared on food labels and were becoming increasingly unpopular with retailers and consumers, he said.

“Manufacturers are increasingly exploring alternatives such as gas flushing and vacuum packaging in order to avoid sulphites. By switching to vacuum packing, Northern Foods has managed to almost double the shelf-life of its diced potatoes and save money through eliminating the need to purchase sulphite and significantly reducing water use.”

Sheffield Hallam University helped Northern Foods to develop its solution. The university was now working with suppliers of fruits and sliced mushrooms on similar projects to help them find alternatives to preservatives such as sulphur dioxide and ascorbic acid, said Fairclough.

Sheffield Hallam recently won £1.3M of government cash to spend on collaborations with manufacturers. Conditions of spending covered everything from innovative new product development to supply chain initiatives and waste reduction projects, said business development manager David Johnson.

“This has been a fantastic opportunity to do something truly multidisciplinary that utilises the expertise of people in the FIRC, the biomedical research centre, the health and wellbeing faculty, psychology and design departments and the materials and engineering research institute,” said Johnson.

He added: “We’re not interested in duplicating work that other universities or research institutions are doing, so we’ve worked closely with DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), Yorkshire Forward and supermarkets such as Asda so that we’re doing something genuinely different rather than reinventing the wheel.”