Inclusions market opens up to new product developers

Confectioners and bakers are set to benefit from Food Design's new chocolate panning room. The company, which manufacturers toffee and fudge inclusions, can now help out new product developers by providing small amounts of chocolate coated ingredients for production trials.

"Up until now we've had to put chocolate coating out to third parties and they can only produce batches of one tonne, which is no good for new product development," says Food Design md Colin Hunter. "Supermarkets tend to launch products on a 13 week cycle. If you're committing yourself to one tonne of ingredients and your product gets knocked on the head after one cycle, you're left with excess product."

The firm has a standard range of chocolate covered products, namely English Toffee Crunch, Honeycomb, Butterscotch and Biscuit Balls, which will be available on a stock basis, meaning that small deliveries can be made to customers within a short lead-time of just 48h. The company also provides bespoke ingredients for customers within 15 days, whereas other firms can take five to six weeks, claims Hunter.

Food Design's new service has already proved popular. "We've won two contracts due to start in Autumn within the baking industry, which will involve us providing them with 30t of chocolate coated product each."

The company has invested over £150,000 and extended its existing premises by 360m2 to complete its air-conditioned dehumidified chocolate room.

The expansion has been driven by customer demand, both in the UK and worldwide, at a time when the company's export market accounts for 29% of its turnover, with a forecast that anticipates exports will rise to at least 35% by the end of the current financial year.

By the end of the summer the company expects that positions for a further four permanent full-time factory staff will be created to meet demand.