FROZEN is fashionable again. That appears to be the industry message as rising food prices force consumers to cut back on wastage and choose products that can be kept for long periods of time.

The same recent browsers of the organic aisle now find their attention drawn to the freezer section.

Helping to point the public in that direction has been high profile endorsement from celebrity chefs such as Delia Smith.

Coming in from the cold has been one of Peterborough's major employers McCain Foods, whose frozen food empire has seen a rise in profits in recent years.

With one in four of Britain's chips being produced at the UK's biggest chip factory, in Whittlesey, the nation's favourite dish looks set to be at home in the area for some time to come.

McCain Foods, known for its range of frozen chips, wedges, roast potatoes and rustic chips, has had to undergo a majorre-branding and re-education of customers during the last few years

Corporate affairs director Bill Bartlett said: "We had an awareness campaign in 2006, following misinformation in the media about so-called junk food.

"Our message was literally, we take a potato, we wash it, we cook it in sunflower oil and then freeze it, which is nature's preservative."

The £20 million It's All Good campaign for healthy eating, launched in September 2006 helped it became the first company to use both the Guideline Daily Amounts percentage system and the Traffic Lights scoring scheme on the same packaging.

With a turnover in 2006 of £182.2 million and an increase of 7.8 per cent to £196.4million in 2007, the campaign was a fruitful exercise for the company, which then had to turn its attention to other key areas.

Soaring fuel costs have meant the business has needed to take a long hard look at the distance its food travels to get to the supermarket.

As the company uses 600,000 tonnes of potatoes per year, more than 12 per cent of the national consumption, McCain Foods is proud of the links it has forged with the local agricultural economy and stresses the importance of UK-based products.

Mr Bartlett said: "We try and deal with growers in Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk as much as possible, unless we have to go to specialist growers.