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Food mag awards in focus: Prepared Foods

The Food Magazine awards will return in 2013 and with entries closing on 24 April, now's your chance to have your product recognised by industry peers!

In this preview of the annual awards, we're looking at the Prepared Foods category, this year sponsored by Flavour Makers.

Products eligible for this category include commercially packaged foods that require some additions and can take two or more steps to create a meal.

Prepared Foods differ from Ready Meals as they are only components of a meal, rather than an entire meal.

Products that can be entered in this category include pasta sauces, relishes, powdered foods and spreads.

The entry process for this category is simple; all you need to do is submit details of your company and the product (name, website, address etc) as well as information on how the product is processed, its significance in the market, any details on export opportunities and what measures were taken to ensure food safety.

Images also need to be provided upon submission.

In last year's Food magazine awards, the Prepared Foods category went to Passage Foods for its Passage to Sri Lanka – Coconut and Cashew Chicken.

About the winner
The new Passage to Sri Lanka range has been developed by the in-house Indian/Sri Lankan chef after a gap in the market was realised for a genuine Sri Lankan flavoured product, with the result being a coconut and cashew chicken sauce.

Passage Foods has experienced success in Australia and overseas with 3500 stores stocking the range in America and proactive initiatives have helped achieve this success. "Passage Foods has been exporting for over six years now," Shaun Doutré, account manager explained.

"We had worked closely with Austrade to initially identify suitable export markets; this was followed by active engagement in national and international trade shows. At the same time we worked at identifying our competitors, sourcing distributors and presenting to buyers from large supermarket chains.  We now have significant market presence in the USA, New Zealand, UAE and Malaysia."  

Doutre said that when producing a long shelf life product it is vital to uphold health and safety standards whilst also maintaining the flavour of the product.

"It is imperative that products do not lose their flavour profiles, colour, and that the organoleptic properties are maintained," he said.

"First and foremost the goal, when initiating a product for Passage Foods, is to ensure that we create an authentic restaurant quality simmer sauce. From this base we then need to ensure that the product retains flavour/ colour and other organoleptic qualities. As the product is hot filled the PH levels are the crucial factor to ensuring the product maintains these qualities over shelf life. Our doy pouch packaging combined with our hot fill process ensures that we are able to maintain our long shelf life. "

For information and entry details, click here.

The 2013 Food Magazine Awards are proudly brought to you by Platinum sponsor Heat and Control. Other sponsors include Flavour Makers, Janbak, HACCP Australia, Kerry Ingredients, Newly Weds Foods, Tronics, APPMA, Earlee Products and Kurz.

 

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