INNOVATIVE BREADCRUMBS ARE WITWOODS’ SPECIALITY

As speciality breads become more and more accessible, coatings manufacturer Witwood Food Products has capitalised on this emerging trend with the development of a new range of speciality breadcrumb coatings.

The new concepts combine a novel range of grains, seeds and malted flakes in premium crumb coatings that incorporate the natural health benefits of grains and seeds to add value to fish, poultry, seafood and vegetables.


 
Witwoods marketing manager, Heather South, explains: “Speciality breads are no longer accessible exclusively through restaurants and delis, and we’ve tracked a marked increase in the purchase of these breads for home consumption.

“To us, reflecting this trend in breadcrumb coatings was a natural step, and the initial response from our customers confirms that there is huge potential for these products in the retail and food service sectors.”

According to Heather, the new concepts represent just one area of Witwoods’ continued focus on innovation in the breadcrumb sector; an approach that has helped put the Oxfordshire manufacturer at the forefront of this market in the UK.

She says: “For some time now we’ve been creating concepts based on speciality breads, such as ciabatta and focaccia style crumb.  By baking oil and herbs into the crumb we can enhance texture, visuals and flavour.  Premium products such as these are now readily available on supermarket shelves and are proving incredibly popular with consumers.” 
                                                                                                              

Another product gaining an increasingly high profile in the Witwoods portfolio is the firm’s clean label breadcrumb range.  First developed more than four years ago, Heather attributes the increasing popularity of these products to a growing focus in the industry towards cleaning up ingredient declarations:

“Most manufacturers are striving to clean up their ingredient declarations and eliminate unnecessary E-numbers.  This is in part a reflection of consumer pressure to use ‘store-cupboard’ ingredients in food manufacture wherever possible and still deliver sophisticated convenience foods,” she says. 

“Our clean label products use alternative ingredients to retain the performance capabilities of their E numbered counterparts, giving a high quality product with a cleaner ingredient declaration.”