Cost Sector Catering: What are the challenges for your business and the free-from market in general?
Tony Davison: As consumers become more engaged and enlightened about what’s on their plate, the demand increases for a more varied product range. We see the complexity of the free-from market growing, and the need for not just vegetarian and vegan but other specialist diet products increasing in the future. At Quorn we’re doing everything to ensure our products are available to as many people as possible. That’s why we’ve launched gluten-free ranges and vegan products endorsed by The Vegan Society, as well as products suitable for religious diets.
What’s your view on how the free-from market is developing?
It’s becoming more complex. It’ll no longer be enough to just offer free-from products. We need to entice customers with great-tasting products that have the added benefit of being free from things like animal products, dairy, nuts, and gluten.
How big is the Quorn brand in the cost sector?
Each year our customers serve more than 30 million meals using Quorn with two-thirds of those in the cost sector, mostly education. When it comes to our bestsellers it’s products like Quorn mince, pieces and sausages that allow people to replicate their favourite meat dishes that do particularly well. And we stay ahead of the game with great recipe inspiration for our customers.
Quorn is a leading ingredient for meat-free meals. What’s in the pipeline for the brand?
Our recipe inspiration and recipe application resources are where we see the future. Through these we’re not just selling products, we’re also supporting chefs to be creative, taking inspiration from trends and flavours coming out of the restaurant and street food world and effectively applying them to the cost sector.
What can Quorn offer cost sector operators?
We have a team of food professionals who work in units, visiting sites and demonstrating our products to chefs, showing how best to serve them to their customers. It’s all about inspiring creativity. By physically going out and demonstrating the latest in free-from culinary trends and the versatility of our range, we encourage customers to make free-from inviting and accessible. It’s so important for us to help simplify free-from for the operator and make flavour challenges easy to overcome.
What’s on your wish list for 2018?
In 2018 we will continue to take our consumer messaging around special diet needs, health and wellbeing, and sustainability into the cost sector. This, along with food security and understanding protein diversity, will be a significant part of our chef education programme as we move into 2018.