The Caribbean islands might get their share of sunshine, but in the UK their food has been overshadowed for years. Britain has a history of West Indian immigration that dates back centuries, and according to data from the last census, Caribbeans account for 1% of the British population, making them the third largest ethnic group (Indian and Pakistani being the two largest). However, Caribbean food has not been popularised to anything like the same degree as Indian and Chinese cuisine, with the vast majority of Caribbean food sold as traditional fayre via niche outlets to people with Afro-Caribbean heritage.
This situation is slowly changing, though, as Horace Miller, founder of the Amazing Beverage Company in London, has observed.
"Go into Croydon at lunchtime and watch the trade at the numerous Caribbean takeaways. You'll see that people of all colours, ages and classes are just as likely to go for a pattie, jerk chicken and samba brew as they are for an M&S [Marks & Spencer] sandwich and coke," he says.
Another Caribbean food manufacturer, Horizon Foods, is opening a new British Retail Consortium accredited factory in London to keep pace with growing demand and to enable it to supply its rotis (flatbreads served as wraps with fillings) to the multiples. "There is certainly growing interest in Caribbean food in the UK," says md Sheldon Hosein, "otherwise I wouldn't be investing in a bigger factory." This anecdotal evidence is backed up by concrete data. In its report Thai and Other Emerging Ethnic Foods - UK - July 2007, Mintel estimates that UK sales of Cajun and Caribbean foods grew by 19% between 2004 and 2006. That's six times as much as Thai foods, which grew by just 3% in the same period. It values the market for Cajun and Caribbean foods at about £38M - almost twice the size of the South East Asian and Japanese food markets.
Positive signs
Leatherhead Food International, in its report The European Ethnic Foods Market, May 2007, places an even higher value of £45M on the market, which it refers to as 'Other American Foods', and forecasts year-on-year growth of 7% until 2011.
This growth spurt is being driven by a number of factors. Leatherhead states that "Caribbean foods remain popular with the UK's West Indian population, while the growing popularity of the region as a long-haul holiday destination has increased consumer exposure to the cuisine."
Popular culture is also raising the profile of Caribbean foods, thanks to the Notting Hill Carnival and TV programmes like Neneh & Andi Dish It Up and Dragon's Den, in which contestant Levi Roots became a celebrity overnight after the dragons backed his Reggae Reggae Sauce.
That said, the proliferation of Caribbean foods on the supermarket shelves hasn't quite happened yet. Consumers looking for Caribbean foods really have to hunt for them, and will mainly find them on the ambient sauce and marinades fixture. Jamaican jerk sauce is the most popular manifestation of the cuisine, with the likes of Knorr, Schwartz, Discovery Foods, Enco Foods and Walkerswood all producing their own variations of the spicy sauce to varying degrees of authenticity.
Retail coverage of other Caribbean-style sauces is slightly more patchy, though last year Walkerswood secured listings for its Coconut Rundown Sauce and Escoveitch Sauce in Waitrose and Sainsbury.
"Escoveitch is the Caribbean version of a pickle sauce: a tart, spicy, hot combination of vinegar, pimento, scotch bonnet peppers, garlic, onions and thyme," explains Roddy Edwards, director of Walkerswood, "and coconut rundown is the traditional way to cook mackerel."
Enco Foods, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Grace Foods UK, sells a seven-strong range of Caribbean sauces under the Encona brand, which is growing by 7% annually (source: IRI 52 w/e Feb 23 2008). The range, which is produced in the company's Corwen factory in North Wales, includes Original West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce, Sweet Mango Chilli Dip and Smooth Papaya Hot Pepper Sauce.
The other Caribbean product that can be found on shelf in the multiples is the pattie - the Caribbean's answer to the Cornish pasty - which consists of a pastry crust filled with chicken, beef, saltfish or vegetables and seasoned with Caribbean spice. The UK market for patties is dominated by two manufacturers: Cleone Foods and Port Royal Patties.
Port Royal Patties was born out of founder Edward Johnston's frustration with the quality and availability of Jamaican patties in the UK.
"With other manufacturers, the pastry was bread-like; ours is flaky and crispy and the fillings are gravy-like," says Johnston.
Port Royal Patties produces 17,000 patties a day, five days a week, and supplies Asda, Tesco and Morrisons.
It's a similar story with Cleone Foods, which was founded by Jamaican-born Wade Lyn. The company produces 100,000 patties a week from its Birmingham factory and its Island Delight patties are listed with Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury, Iceland, the Co-op and Morrisons.
On the face of it, it appears patties have made it into the mass market. However, a closer look shows that they are far from mainstream. They are generally only listed in stores that have a high concentration of Afro-Caribbeans living in the surrounding area, plus their presence in the multiples is precarious: Port Royal's patties are listed in six Asda stores and 100 Tesco stores - a number which has actually fallen rather than increased in the last few years.
A different approach
Fundamental to the future expansion of the Caribbean foods category, therefore, is broadening the consumer base beyond people with historic ties with the Caribbean. One company that has attempted to do this - with mixed fortunes - is Birmingham-based Original Fusion Foods, a manufacturer of Caribbean patties with an Indo-European twist.
"Our products originated within the family and have been adapted over at least five generations," says founder Sid Khan. "During this time, our family has migrated from the Indian subcontinent to the Caribbean and on to the UK. At each stage, recipes have been adapted to take account of ingredients that are available locally.
"In bringing them to market I have premiumised the patties by using locally sourced ingredients and ensuring a high meat content - our chicken pattie, for example, contains over 50% meat. Other patties typically target the value end of the market."
Khan hopes that taking the pattie upmarket will allow him to create a new market for the pastries beyond their core Afro-Caribbean base. "Generally, the products have gone down really well, in particular with the owners of independent outlets.
"However, this has not translated into the level of sales that we would have liked, mainly (I think) because the products are too different for the main consumer demographic that appears to shop at farm shops: older, semi-rural, traditional people. Consequently, we are targeting the multiples and convenience stores, which has meant rethinking the product proposition."
Walkerswood has also had some forays into the ready meals market, supplying two options - Jerk Chicken and Coconut Rundown Chicken - into Sainsbury a few years ago, but owner Roddy Edwards admits that they never became 'must-stock' lines.
He does, however, still think there is potential within the ready meals category. "Once we've ironed out our current supply issues we will go back to ready meals," he says.
It seems that producers of Caribbean foods are stuck between a rock and a hard place - design a product to appeal predominantly to an Afro-Caribbean customer base and you limit your market; try and win over the broader population and you risk failure.
This is probably why there are a number of Caribbean food manufacturers in the UK who choose to stick to products that might never hit the mainstream, but will always have a following among people with Caribbean backgrounds.
Stick to your roots
The Amazing Beverage Company, for example, has been producing Caribbean style soft drinks for the past 13 years and sells some 6,000 bottles every month via independent retailers or takeaways in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Bristol.
Its offerings include sorrel or hibiscus drinks, in which the flower of the hibiscus is infused for several days with sugar and spice or fruit flavours such as pineapple; Simba Brew, a fiery Jamaican style ginger beer; and Ital Moss, a carrageen-based drink.
Except for the likes of Walkerswood and Enco Foods, which import a large proportion of their products, and Discovery Foods and Unilever, which have only really dabbled in Jamaican-style sauces, all the players in the UK Caribbean foods market are smaller, independently-owned companies, which lack the muscle and, in some cases, the ambition, to broaden their target market. So for the time being at least, it seems supermarket shoppers intent on catching some Caribbean sunshine will have to jump on a plane or satisfy themselves with Jamaican jerk chicken. FM