The Future’s Looking Fresh for Hazeldene

Simon Ball
In the recent edition of the leading fresh produce trade magazine – FPJ – managing director, Simon Ball, looks forward to the scorching summer season in the UK after a difficult winter for the industry.
After the long winter, many of us thought summer would never arrive… Thankfully it has and we are well placed to strengthen our position as a leading supplier of fresh leafy salads to our customers.
The recent decision by William Jackson Food Group (WJFG) to acquire the minority stake held previously by the founding shareholders, making Hazeldene a wholly owned subsidiary, will add fresh momentum to our initiative of ‘putting flavour back on the plate’. This further emphasises the commitment that WJFG has to the fresh produce category, through its ownership of both Hazeldene and Parripak.
Since late April, we have seen a significant increase in sales levels across our customer base and this is reflected in recent Kantar Worldpanel data, showing the bagged salad category remains in strong growth at 8.6% (52 w/e to 18/4/10).
The prospect of a bumper summer, fuelled by the inevitable World Cup barbecues, is set to boost growth for us, which we are all very excited about. It is also clear that the prepared salad market is in good shape ahead of the key summer season, with major supermarket groups enjoying strong growth, despite one of the coldest winter seasons on record. Some are into double digits, which for a mature, high penetration category like bagged salads, is bucking many of the recession-led trends, such the rise in cooking from scratch.
The gloomy views ahead of the recent recession suggested a wholesale reversion to whole head products, which simply hasn’t happened. This is positive news for the industry as it shows that consumers’ appetites for low waste, great tasting leaf products and convenient meal solutions, has not been affected.
At Hazeldene, we are working closely with all our customers to ensure our products are tailored towards their business needs. This is something we are working hard to deliver, some of which will arrive as early as summer 2010. In April this year, we invited a number of key business-to-business customers to our Spanish crop trials, where we looked at ways of enhancing the leaf offer within their products. Some of our customers spent a little longer than originally planned, following the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano – unfortunately coinciding with our trials! However, after what seemed like an outtake from ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’, all of our customers got home… eventually!
So far, indications are that the UK crop is looking good and having just about completed the migration from imported to UK sourced products, we can now reflect on what was possibly one of the most difficult winter season’s supply in most peoples’ memories. Although, on a plus side, we were able to source our products within Europe instead of America, despite the weather issues.
Whilst it is quickly forgotten by many and ongoing supply is a taken as a given, the supply chain effort in ensuring the product was available, is not to be underestimated and has certainly provided some clear direction for the next winter season. Our own operation, based near Murcia in Spain, proved invaluable through the winter season giving us ‘on the ground’ reports on availability, as well as the weather. At times it felt as though Lancashire had moved to southern Spain!
So, as we now embark on the summer 2010 season, I am confident that we will finally see that ‘barbecue summer’ I have been predicting for the last couple of years. A wholly owned subsidiary of WJFG will see us delivering industry leading development initiatives, which continue to fuel growth in the fresh salad category.


