The amount of investment and innovation ploughed into the vegetable category has been on an even keel for a number of years but, as a leader in carrots and parsnips, Watton Produce sees these twin principles as top priorities. The range of new products introduced by the supplier in the last 12 months backs up its long-term support of the 5 A DAY initiative and the School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme (SFVS), and has helped to attract consumers to the vegetable aisles.
Watton Produce processes 75,000 tonnes of carrots and parsnips a year, in England, Scotland, Spain and France, packing for Knights Farm, in the Norfolk area of Breckland, Scotland-based Moray Coast Produce, and Knights of Spain. Its customer base encompasses major retailers, as well as the foodservice and wholesale sectors.
The forward-thinking company was recognised at Re:fresh 2007 for its involvement in both the 5 A DAY programme and the SFVS, to step up consumption of its core products and introduce new lines into the mix.
The team reinforced this win two weeks ago when it picked up the Grower of the Year Award in the vegetable category.
Watton Produce became involved with the SFVS, which supplies a free piece of fruit or vegetable to all four- to six-year-olds every school day, back in 2003. The supplier offered prepared carrots, grown specifically for their sweet taste and bright orange colour, in order to encourage schoolchildren who may never have eaten carrots before to give them a try. By late 2004, it was providing carrots to seven of the scheme’s nine regions, supplying a staggering 1.8 million carrots a week in all.
Two years later, the involvement in the SFVS stepped up a gear, with visits to various schools in the East to get feedback from the children. This showed the need for variety within the scheme, and the importance of colour and novelty.
Watton Produce saw the opportunity and started to supply mini cucumbers to the SFVS, following a six-month trial. The miniature version of the full-sized cucumber hit schools in the summer of 2006 and, since then, mini cucumbers have been rolled out to schools across the country. More than 6m mini cues were supplied to the scheme during a six-week period last summer.
Watton Produce made the most of a unique opportunity to boost consumption when it became involved with the 5 A DAY scheme, says new product development manager Katy Negus. “The 5 A DAY award was won on the basis of the work we had carried out with the scheme,” she says. “We are the main supplier of carrots and mini cucumbers into the SFVS, providing each school child with one piece of UK-grown carrot a week, from September to around Easter. Then we supply mini cues for six weeks throughout the summer, to all schoolchildren in the UK.
“We have been involved with the scheme from the beginning five years ago, when we trialled peeled carrots as a snack, and it proved successful.
“We are continually looking for new products to encourage healthy eating in school children, and we are looking at a few new ideas at the moment, both in terms of new varieties or the development of existing products.”
The SFVS has come a long way since Watton Produce came on board in its early days, and the portfolio of products has continued to increase as more fresh produce businesses have lent their support.
“When we became involved with the SFVS it was called the School Fruit Scheme and only supplied fruit, but we realised that there was an opportunity for vegetables, especially carrots, which are a top snacking product,” says Negus. “Carrots were the first vegetable to get on board the SFVS, and now they are one of the top products supplied into the scheme.”
Involvement in the 5 A DAY campaign and the SFVS stands as a long-term commitment for Watton Produce, but this is just one of the things the business is working to build on in the future.
It is essential to keep one step ahead of the sector to really push forward new ideas, says sales and business development manager Stuart Mills. “Standard products are becoming so commoditised, and the market has become very tired,” he says. “We have been looking at ways of innovating, and we have made this a priority for the business.
“We are continually finding new ideas, rather than copying what is already on the market.”
The emphasis on locally grown vegetables has continued to grow over the last 12 months, in line with trends in the retail sector, and Watton Produce has been keen to get on board by making a feature of its home-grown carrots and parsnips in stores in the region.
Watton Produce introduced whole knife-peeled carrots into the Tesco East Anglian range in October 2007, and followed this up by launching its own Knights Farm-branded parsnips into Budgens in January, as part of its Tastes of Anglia initiative.
The knife-peeled carrots are an innovation for the category, which traditionally uses carborundum peeling techniques to grind the skin away. “The way in which we prepare these carrots has real benefits to the consumer, including longer shelf life, less time in preparation, and also the fact that they are ready to eat straight out of the bag,” says Mills. “They can be cut, diced, sliced, battened, boiled, roasted, you name it.
“Carrots that are cut conventionally using carborundum techniques tend to look more like canned carrots, and they lose a lot of water, so they dehydrate quickly. Our knife-peeled carrots have two days extra shelf life because of the way they are prepared, and yield is up to 85 per cent.”
The launch of the Knights Farm-branded parsnips, with their high-quality standards and distinctive packaging, has also brought something new to the sector.
Knights Farm, in Breckland, was founded in the 1940s by William Knights, and now grows 850 acres of carrots and 750a of parsnips for Watton Produce. The Knights Farm-branded packs feature photographs of wild birds, because Knights’ son, Chris, has combined farming on the estate with a life-long interest in wildlife and photography. The farm now acts as a haven for birds, including the grey partridge, stone curlew, lapwings, oyster catchers and common curlew, in addition to the indigenous British hare.
Watton Produce developed the Knights Farm brand over eight to 10 weeks last year. “The basis of the whole story behind the packaging is the environmental side of what they do there,” explains Negus.
“Watton Produce is renowned for producing top-quality fresh vegetables, and Knights Farm enables us to do so with high regard for the environment,” says managing director Steve Navey. “We are delighted that Budgens is promoting local produce, and we are sure that today’s consumer makes very educated decisions about purchasing, and will prove this at the check-out.”
The list of new lines introduced by Watton Produce last year does not end there. Watton Produce introduced a UK-grown Baby Tendersweet carrot last year and, according to Mills, it has been “massively successful” in the premium ranges at Tesco and Morrisons, and at Marks & Spencer. The hand-harvested, hand-trimmed product consists of three specific varieties to ensure continuous supply, all of which are harvested young to make the most of their sweet flavour.
“The product has been imported for the multiples for the past few years, but we have cut air miles by growing it in the UK for the first time,” says Mills. “We have also used non-PVC overwrap film and R-PET trays to make the product, overall, as environment-friendly as possible.”
The team strives to lead fresh produce trends by carrying out meticulous research into what its customers need, and what is missing from the market. Watton Produce is continually working to improve its range of prepared, fresh and convenient carrots and, in 2008, the firm intends to launch a consumer-friendly pack of parsnips.
“The sales and development teams hold weekly meetings and carry out benchmarking in stores, to see what is on the shelves, both in the UK and overseas,” says Negus. “We speak to our customers to find out what they require. TNS data helps us to understand what is happening in the marketplace and, in addition, we try to look at the market as consumers, to see it from their perspective. In this way, we can keep in touch with the market and our customers, and be up to date with trends.”
No comments yet