When is a potato not a potato? When it has Provenance!

Jan. 8, 2008 - PRLog -- The buzzword on the lips of high street retailers is ‘Provenance’.  Increasingly their customers want to know the story behind the vegetable – just calling it a ‘potato’ won’t do any more!

According to Parripak Foods, one of the leading fresh vegetable preparation specialists in the country, the provenance of the vegetable is split into two main areas, the region and the variety.  Regional trends include authentic Italian vegetables such as Mooli, red onions and spring onions from named Italian areas.  There is also a wide range of garlic such as the softneck, strong flavoured Spanish Morado variety that is sourced exclusively from Murcia. Varieties include named potatoes such as Maris Piper, King Edward and Desiree   which Parripak can contract grow for its customers.

Dominic Pleasance from Parripak explained: “This is a far cry from 20 years ago when vegetables were primarily used as a bulking agent.  Now fresh produce is often the selling point of more visual style ready meals.  For example exotic mushrooms such as Shitake, Oyster and Portabello have taken over from the ordinary varieties in more luxury type dishes.  We have also experienced increased demand for exotic tomatoes such as on the vine, Santini and baby plum and heat specific named chilli varieties.”

Parripak says always designed their production capability to be flexible to procure and process short run provenance lines, and are now pro-actively recommending this type of new product development work to their customers.  

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Editor’s notes
300dpi jpg available from media contact
Parripak Foods are now one of the leading fresh vegetable preparation specialists in the country, serving food manufacturers and food service companies. In 2006 they become part of the William Jacksons Food group, and currently operate from a 62,000 sq ft purpose built factory on the same site providing a wide range of freshly processed-to-order vegetables, with many of them still grown on the 700 acres of vegetable farmland surrounding the factory.  

A dedicated garlic processing unit has been established on site which supplies pureed, whole peeled, chopped and diced garlic to ready meal, pizza, soup and ethnic cuisine customers. It also has a segregated high-care facility to cater for customers who produce dips and sauces and require low micro levels.

Parripak have also received various accreditations including EFSIS, organic accreditation through the Soil Association and Investors in People.

For technical information contact James Parrish, Parripak’s commercial 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

Website: www.parripak.co.uk