Member Article

Food company toasts Chinese New Year

A Teesside company is gearing up for Chinese New Year by making an astonishing 1.5 million pieces of prawn toast – thanks to a £600,000 new investment.

Alongside those at SK Chilled Food’s two production centres at Riverside and South Bank will be a host of Oriental snacks and side dishes including two million spring rolls and hundreds of thousands spare ribs, lemon chicken and wontons.

This is one of the busiest times of the year for the Teesside-based company, which is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of chilled and frozen snack foods.

As part of their preparation, SK has also invested in the area where the prawn toast they provide for major supermarkets across the UK is prepared. The £618,000 investment has seen the capacity of the area increase meaning even more of the delicious toasts can be made as well as improving equipment.

From their state-of-the-art development kitchen in Wynyard, the company’s chefs have been honing and perfecting the recipes for all of their Oriental snacks in time for Chinese New Year which begins on February 8th when the Year of the Monkey will begin.

Jeremy Faulkner, Managing Director of SK Foods, said: “This is one of our busiest times of year as we produce a significant range of Oriental food for supermarkets all over the UK. If you enjoy a spring roll or prawn toast bought from a local supermarket, it was likely made right here in Teesside.

“We have a team of chefs who work to make sure our Oriental flavours are delicious and authentic. They develop their own recipes, testing and tasting to make sure they are right for individual customers. Each customer has their own recipe whatever Oriental food it is, so even though they’re made in the same place, they will taste unique and different, depending on where it is bought.

“Although we make a great range of different worldwide foods such as Indian and Tex Mex, Oriental remains extremely popular. Our investment in continuing to expand and improve the facilities we have to meet customer needs in this area shows our commitment to making sure we’re at the forefront of providing the best ethnic foods possible.”

Chinese New Year is the longest and most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. Traditionally, celebrations last 15 days with families preparing by cooking food, buying gifts and cleaning house well in advance.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Neil Shaefer .