Home: April - May 2006 › Onion appeal
Onion appeal
25/12/2006 | Channel: Manufacturer, Ingredients
Sheffield Foods supplies hand-peeled pickling onions to the food industry
With over 30 years experience, Sheffield Foods is the UK's last remaining specialist supplier of pickling onions to the food industry. The company uses traditional methods, and superior hand finishing techniques, to process onions for customers in the pickling business. Together with this, it is continuing to expand its range of products, such as garlic and shallots, for ready meals. Despite increasing competition from Polish companies, Sheffield Food's excellent process techniques, combined with its efficient, 24-hour delivery operation, ensures it remains a market-leader.
"At Sheffield Foods, we process onions using traditional methods, meaning that every onion is hand finished in preparation for pickling," explains Ken Ellis, CEO at the company. "We supply our finished onions to food manufacturers that then pickle, and bottle them. Together with this, we also produce an extensive range of other Alliums, the genus of the onion. This includes a selection of products for ready meals in the UK, such as garlic and shallots, and we do some extremely nice, highquality hand profiling of capsicums, beetroots and other vegetables. However, 90 per cent of our business is based around producing the onions for pickling. This area is currently static, whilst the other ten per cent, the products for ready meals, is the area that we are expecting to grow. We currently operate from one site in the UK and have around 120 employees that peel and process around 1600 tons of onions per year.
"We are a unique company that has continued to buck the trend over the last 30 years," Ken continues. "Our adaptability, resilience and continuous ability to re-invent ourselves in the market has been key to our success. In 1985 there were seven other companies in the same market as us, and today we are the only one left.
Whereas industry in general moved towards increased levels of capital investment,
we have continued to offer something that is produced by hand, and very labour
intensive. People are still surprised that we do not process our onions by machine. The main mechanical aid that we have is a furnace. The brown skin of an onion is more combustible than the white, and so we put the onions through the furnace to ensure that the brown skin comes of easily. However, ultimately, every single pickled onion eaten in the UK has been touched by a human hand."
In recent years Sheffield Foods has faced increasing competition from low-cost alternatives in other European countries: "As the company has continued to expand it has faced a number of challenges, the most recent being the so-called Polish intrusion into the UK pickle market," Ken comments. "Due to the imported competition from Poland we had to close our site in Bradford last year, but we are confident that there are initial signs of this slowly turning around. Polish industry in general is improving, and as more jobs become available, and people have more of a choice, they are not always going to choose to peel onions. Polish companies produce very good quality, pretty onions that can compete with ours in terms of texture, and visual quality.
"However, we have our fresh, traditional pickling cycle that gives us a flavour advantage," he continues. "Also, the geographical distances to the UK market raises questions regarding food travel and its effects on the atmosphere, and also gives
us the fundamental difference of a 24-hour operation. We can take a fresh onion, remove the skin, process it into a brining solution, and deliver it to a customer for bottling within 24 hours.
"Polish processors, who do produce good onions, are putting theirs on lorries that have to travel around 1000 miles across Europe in deep chill for three or four days," says Ken. "The speed of the cycle has definite effects on the flavour of the produce, and fresh onions will taste better than those that are severely chilled or frozen, so, as far as I am concerned we are the flavour kings. This is becoming increasingly important with the current healthy eating trends, as only fresh produce can be truly healthy. If you freeze an onion, or severely chill it, you break down its structure, and
when it is eventually cooked it will be exceedingly soft and mushy. This is where we have the advantage as we can deliver fresh produce immediately. There is a ten day order cycle from Poland but if you cook in the kitchen, you don't peel your onions a week before."
Together with the threat from competition, Ken explains that the growing season of the onions themselves can restrict operations: "The growing cycle of pickling onions forbids a 12 month season. They are harvested from August to October, and by the following April they are beginning to look tired after being out of the ground. Although it is not feasible to stretch the keeping quality of the onion, salad type activity, such as beetroot and other vegetables that are readily available throughout summer, is something that we want to process more. For example, beetroot, particularly baby beetroot, is hugely expensive, and enormously popular, during the summer months. From the available material we can produce a very attractive, large wedge, that is similar in size to baby beetroot, but has significant price advantages for the customers."
Looking to the future, Ken is confident that together with onions, the company can continue to develop its product range further: "I believe that food in the UK in general is improving, and becoming an increasingly popular topic. I think that the UK market will grow, and that we will become increasingly useful for the fast changing food ideas. We are looking at the high profile vegetable product areas such as peppers and shallots. We have seen a great shift in the popularity of shallots recently, it is as if the public has rediscovered them, particularly in ready meals. We are seeing good growth in theready meal sector, and I believe that we will see
further developments in the future," he concludes.
"At Sheffield Foods, we process onions using traditional methods, meaning that every onion is hand finished in preparation for pickling," explains Ken Ellis, CEO at the company. "We supply our finished onions to food manufacturers that then pickle, and bottle them. Together with this, we also produce an extensive range of other Alliums, the genus of the onion. This includes a selection of products for ready meals in the UK, such as garlic and shallots, and we do some extremely nice, highquality hand profiling of capsicums, beetroots and other vegetables. However, 90 per cent of our business is based around producing the onions for pickling. This area is currently static, whilst the other ten per cent, the products for ready meals, is the area that we are expecting to grow. We currently operate from one site in the UK and have around 120 employees that peel and process around 1600 tons of onions per year.
"We are a unique company that has continued to buck the trend over the last 30 years," Ken continues. "Our adaptability, resilience and continuous ability to re-invent ourselves in the market has been key to our success. In 1985 there were seven other companies in the same market as us, and today we are the only one left.
Whereas industry in general moved towards increased levels of capital investment,
we have continued to offer something that is produced by hand, and very labour
intensive. People are still surprised that we do not process our onions by machine. The main mechanical aid that we have is a furnace. The brown skin of an onion is more combustible than the white, and so we put the onions through the furnace to ensure that the brown skin comes of easily. However, ultimately, every single pickled onion eaten in the UK has been touched by a human hand."
In recent years Sheffield Foods has faced increasing competition from low-cost alternatives in other European countries: "As the company has continued to expand it has faced a number of challenges, the most recent being the so-called Polish intrusion into the UK pickle market," Ken comments. "Due to the imported competition from Poland we had to close our site in Bradford last year, but we are confident that there are initial signs of this slowly turning around. Polish industry in general is improving, and as more jobs become available, and people have more of a choice, they are not always going to choose to peel onions. Polish companies produce very good quality, pretty onions that can compete with ours in terms of texture, and visual quality.
"However, we have our fresh, traditional pickling cycle that gives us a flavour advantage," he continues. "Also, the geographical distances to the UK market raises questions regarding food travel and its effects on the atmosphere, and also gives
us the fundamental difference of a 24-hour operation. We can take a fresh onion, remove the skin, process it into a brining solution, and deliver it to a customer for bottling within 24 hours.
"Polish processors, who do produce good onions, are putting theirs on lorries that have to travel around 1000 miles across Europe in deep chill for three or four days," says Ken. "The speed of the cycle has definite effects on the flavour of the produce, and fresh onions will taste better than those that are severely chilled or frozen, so, as far as I am concerned we are the flavour kings. This is becoming increasingly important with the current healthy eating trends, as only fresh produce can be truly healthy. If you freeze an onion, or severely chill it, you break down its structure, and
when it is eventually cooked it will be exceedingly soft and mushy. This is where we have the advantage as we can deliver fresh produce immediately. There is a ten day order cycle from Poland but if you cook in the kitchen, you don't peel your onions a week before."
Together with the threat from competition, Ken explains that the growing season of the onions themselves can restrict operations: "The growing cycle of pickling onions forbids a 12 month season. They are harvested from August to October, and by the following April they are beginning to look tired after being out of the ground. Although it is not feasible to stretch the keeping quality of the onion, salad type activity, such as beetroot and other vegetables that are readily available throughout summer, is something that we want to process more. For example, beetroot, particularly baby beetroot, is hugely expensive, and enormously popular, during the summer months. From the available material we can produce a very attractive, large wedge, that is similar in size to baby beetroot, but has significant price advantages for the customers."
Looking to the future, Ken is confident that together with onions, the company can continue to develop its product range further: "I believe that food in the UK in general is improving, and becoming an increasingly popular topic. I think that the UK market will grow, and that we will become increasingly useful for the fast changing food ideas. We are looking at the high profile vegetable product areas such as peppers and shallots. We have seen a great shift in the popularity of shallots recently, it is as if the public has rediscovered them, particularly in ready meals. We are seeing good growth in theready meal sector, and I believe that we will see
further developments in the future," he concludes.
