The University of Abertay Dundee’s Food Innovation team (FIA) have developed four new gourmet breads for Peckham’s of Scotland, the specialist food and drinks delicatessen.
Through the Interface Innovation Voucher Scheme (funded by the Scottish Funding Council), which is aimed at building links between small businesses and higher education institutes in Scotland, Peckham’s gained access to Abertay’s expertise in developing new products for the food and drinks industry.
Peckham’s initially came to Abertay with ideas for four new types of artisan breads: an olive and sundried tomato bread, a potato bread, an oat bread with green/black tea, and a ciabatta with green/ black tea.
Abertay’s expert craft baker Louis Frew worked with the company to take these ideas forward and suggested a few new ideas to the Peckham’s bakery team as well.
Six recipes were developed based around the initial suggestions and, after a few tweaks, the products were tested by an independent consumer panel who commented on the appearance, taste and texture of the breads.
Feedback from the consumer panel helped Peckham’s decide which breads they wanted to sell in their stores and, from October onwards, Peckham’s will be making a spelt loaf, a potato bread, a Mediterranean flatbread, and a Mediterranean bread, freshly baked in store for their discerning customers.
Gabrielle Jondet, National Operational Manager at Peckham’s Scotland Ltd, said:
“Working with Abertay’s Food Innovation team has been a very successful venture for us. As a company we had identified key areas and skills that we wished to work towards, and found the collaboration gave us a direction and focus that really motivated the staff and provided us with a highly successful outcome.
“Peckham's has always prided itself on offering the public a range of handmade breads, made and proved with traditional methods and ingredients. Although our core range has remained successful, we wanted to extend it to offer products that were not widely available in the marketplace.
“As well as getting 'hands on' with our team, Louis Frew from FIA provided us with great direction, support and guidance. His manner and experience commanded great respect from our team, and they found the experience not only beneficial from a knowledge perspective but also motivational in regards to the work that they do.
“Our branches enjoyed trialling the new products, and offering them to their customers. Everyone was involved in some stage of the product development, so we would highly recommend this type of collaboration to any other business – we found it highly beneficial, feel that the objectives that we had in place were successfully reached, and appreciate all the time and expertise that was offered to us.”
Jonathan Wilkin, Senior Food Technologist for Food Innovation @ Abertay (FIA) who worked on the project, said:
“We work well with food and drink businesses from around Scotland, and are happy to be able to provide a versatile, specialist and effective service.
“It’s always interesting developing new products, and the work we did with Peckham’s means that they can now successfully bring four new artisan breads to their delicatessens and, most importantly, to their customers.”
ENDS
Notes to Editor:
Peckham’s have five stores in Glasgow, one in Aberdeen and one in Edinburgh
To find out more about Food Innovation @ Abertay, please visit: http://www.foodinnovation.abertay.ac.uk/
Gourmet, or “artisan”, breads are made using traditional production methods. This means the bread is "started" using a sour dough mix, is then kneaded, proved and kneaded again before the ingredients are added and the bread is shaped by hand before being cooked in a bread oven.
A lot of modern bread is made using the Chorleywood method which accelerates the proving process: it is kneaded, shaped, and then the ingredients are all added automatically. The bread is then cooked in an oven which moves the bread through on a conveyor belt.
For media enquiries please contact Kirsty Cameron. T: 01382 308935 M: 07922041198 E: k.cameron@abertay.ac.uk
