North East food company first to receive innovation grant

Submitted by on Wed, 21.05.08

Sunderland-based Challenger Foods is the first company to be awarded a grant from the Northern Food Industry Innovation Network (NFIIN) Innovation Fund.

The company, based at the Leechmere Industrial Estate, has received the sum of £5,000 from NFIIN towards the cost of trialling new software that will help it work towards a Holy Grail of the food and drink industry known as ‘clean labelling’.

Part of the 2 Sisters Food Group, Challenger Foods produces a wide range of ‘value-added’ cooked meat and poultry products. The majority of its business is involved in producing cooked marinated chicken in a wide variety of flavours for the sandwich, salad and pizza markets.

As health-conscious consumers increasingly scan product labels for details of additives, companies such as Challenger have been working with experts from local universities on ways to change production methods and processes and achieve ‘clean’ additive-free labels on foods.

At the company’s Sunderland plant, this has involved the development of a Live Temperature Monitoring System, which uses a wireless sensor travelling through an oven to monitor product core temperatures during the cooking process. As soon as the core safety temperatures are reached the cooking operation is stopped, resulting in optimum retention of moisture and product quality.

The NFIIN Innovation Fund grant has part-funded the costs of implementing new software on site for a full-scale production trial of the system over three months.

Darren Gedge, Head Of Technical for 2 Sisters Foods Group, Prepared Division, said: “The funding has come at exactly the right time for our business, helping to implement the system and carry out full scale trials and results verification.

“Success will mean we can better compete against competition not only in the UK but increasingly from areas of the world such as Thailand and Brazil.”

Set up in 2007, NFIIN encourages collaboration between the region’s food and drink sector and research organisations across the North of England. 

Backed by the north’s three Regional Development Agencies through The Northern Way programme, it brings together two of the UK’s leading food processing technology organisations, the Food Processing Faraday Partnership and Leatherhead Food International, and Knowledge House, the Sunderland-based organisation that facilitates collaboration between industry and academics.