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Business is really hotting up for frozen food giant McCain
The revival in popularity of frozen foods is proving to be a nourIshing trend for one of Peterborough's largest employers, as reporter KIRSTEN BEACOCK discovered.
The revival in popularity of frozen foods is proving to be a nourIshing trend for one of Peterborough's largest employers, as reporter KIRSTEN BEACOCK discovered.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.
“We currently work with more than 300 potato farmers, with many of whom we have enjoyed a relationship going back three generations.”
Further “food mile” reductions have been made using double-decker trailers which can transport more products and solar panels which power the refrigeration units on the lorries, and lower the amount of fuel used.
The factory is one of the area’s major employers with the workforce covering diverse areas from engineering, office admin workers to staff on the factory floor.
McCain Foods has other outlets in Wolverhampton, Hull, Scarborough and Montrose, with each one performing a different task.
Mr Bartlett said: “In terms of expansion and innovation, plans are always under review.
“For instance, we have the heat recovery project at Scarborough and we will be sharing those findings across the group.
“A lot depends on the location of the site. Here at Whittlesey the area’s high winds make it ideal for the turbine project.
“It is also in the middle of an industrial site at least half an hour from other residents and means that consultation with the council and residents has been relatively easy in regard to planning issues.”
McCain Foods is privately owned and is part of Canada’s McCain Foods Group, the world’s largest maker of fries and according to chief executive Nick Vermont, this independence has allowed the company to expand in the right way.
Mr Vermont said: “Independence means we have the ability to make long-term decisions like the 15 million environmental project.
“It’s going to make us money in the long-term but we have had the freedom to invest heavily for the future.”
He said there was an image problem associated with heavy industry that the company had to overcome in the eyes of the public.
He said: “We are very much industrial.
“We use a lot of steam and a lot of water and we are trying to work in the best way possible.
“We are an efficiency based business and so we are always looking for ways of saving energy and costs and for that we have looked at new technology to bridge the gap.
“I think people are now realising that freezing is an extremely efficient way of storing food – you don’t throw much away and it is of the highest quality.”
This week the Whittlesey factory celebrated the culmination of a successful environmental initiative as it became the first major UK food manufacturer to use significant levels of alternative energy to help power a facility of this size.
Minister for Energy Malcolm Wicks also gave the company a ringing endorsement saying: “The investment in wind turbines at the plant in Whittlesey will cut McCain’s carbon dioxide emission and generate clean, green, secure and sustainable energy.
“Chips, although healthy, also give you a slightly guilty feeling, so now we have a good excuse to eat those renewable chips.”
Mr Vermont added: “Businesswise it’s been a pretty good year. We are delighted with the project and the engineering team did a fabulous job on the turbines project.”
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