Demand for potatoes for Fresh Mash goes through the roof at Parripak Foods

Bedfordshire-based Parripak Foods, are one of the largest processors of fresh vegetables to chilled food manufacturers in the country, and have been peeling potatoes for 20 years.

[ClickPress, Mon Jul 23 2007] Bedfordshire-based Parripak Foods, are one of the largest processors of fresh vegetables to chilled food manufacturers in the country, and have been peeling potatoes for 20 years. Producing up to 250 tonnes per week of peeled potatoes, they have recently seen a significant increase in the demand for potatoes for the manufacture of Fresh Mash, and this line alone now accounts for almost 70% of all finished product.

According to the TNS Family Food Panel data from June 2004-May 2005, boiled and mash meal types accounted for 40% of in home meals, including packed lunch, with 17% accounting for fast foods and takeaways.

Parripak’s joint managing director, James Parrish said: “ Innovations in new product development is a vital part of our process. There continues to be a move away from retail fresh product towards retail process products and high quality convenience food. This has led to greater specialisation and increased process retail sales reflect the lifestyle changes of today’s consumer. We are currently producing up to 7 tonnes an hour on potato alone and all our potato products end up in well-known brands and supermarket own brands of soups, fresh mash and ready to cook meals.”

James Parrish and his team have for some time been working on reducing the food miles and carbon footprints of the products that they procure. This means local and UK grown products as opposed to imported. Where imported products are unavoidable in the closed season, it is trying to limit the environmental impact with land and sea freight as opposed to airfreight.

“There has been a substantial increase in imported processed products. However as a UK processor, we want to ensure top quality products and we only source from growers who are already supplying the supermarkets. This means they are accredited to Tesco’s “Nature’s Choice”, Waitroses’ “LEAF” (Link Environment and farming) and M & S’ “Field to Fork” protocol, to name but a few.” James explained.

Parripak has made significant investment in their potato processing line, which incorporates sophisticated technology such as optical grading. This investment has doubled their capacity on peeled output and their 2 peeling lines give them huge flexibility in the type of finished product offered. They are now geared to high volume lines which can produce whole peeled, sliced, diced julienne and other cuts of potato and this flexibility has also proved attractive to customers with extremely tight JIT deadlines.

One of the key areas of potato processing which is often under-estimated is water and effluent costs. To help cover these costs, Parripak has upgraded their water treatment plant to deal with the increased starch-rich water from the potato line.

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Editor’s notes:

Parripak Foods Ltd was founded in 1987 as a diversification enterprise to a family business specialising in the growing and pre-packing of onions and shallots. The business quickly expanded and now produces a wide range of vegetables including carrots and potatoes, some of which are still grown on the farm, which means that the process is controlled from seed through to finished product.

For technical information contact James Parrish, Parripak’s joint managing director
Tel: +44 (0)1462 813279 E-mail sales@parripak.co.uk

For media information contact Val Jefferys, Ultimedia Public Relations
Tel: +44 (0)1767 601621 (ddl) E-mail: val@ultimediapr.co.uk

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