Latest  News

Latest data on UK savoury snacks industry

Issued 21 February 2020

SNACMA has issued the third update of its popular ‘Celebrating the UK Snacks Industry’ brochure to include the latest data for 2019 and 2018.

The updated report confirms that the snack sector continues to make a valuable contribution to food manufacturing in the UK. By the end of 2019 the value of the UK savoury snacks market (including potato crisps, snacks, nuts, popcorn and baked snacks) grew to a total of £3,222 million*, with 5% YOY growth in exports (2018 data) reported.

The brochure also provides further data on employment in UK and the sector’s work on reformulation.

The full report can be found here.

Contact: Andrew Curtis, Director General, Potato Processors’ Association Ltd at: andrew@ppauk.org, andrew@snacma.org.uk or +44 (0)70 3914 7088.

* Source: Nielsen data, 52w/e 28/12/19, Total Coverage, Value Sales

AHDB Launch ‘Ordinary Food is Good Enough’

Issued 31 January 2020

At Food Matters Live in November 2019 the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) launched the ‘Food Advisory Board’ (FAB). The FAB’s aim is to cut through the mixed, confusing and unproven messages about food in the media by giving sound independent and evidenced-based advice.

FAB has today launched a campaign called ‘Ordinary Food is Good Enough’. #OrdinaryFood raises awareness of the unproven, mixed messaged that people are exposed to everyday and promotes eating simple, everyday food for a healthy and balanced diet.

For more information visit the website and watch the short video:

New videos for SMEs on tools for managing acrylamide

Issued 23 November 2018

The European Snacks Association (ESA) has produced three short videos intended to help manufacturers of potato crisps made from fresh sliced potato, as well as dough-based potato crisps, snacks, and crackers, when implementing Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/2158.

The Regulation, which applies across the EU from 11 April 2018, establishes mitigation measures and benchmark levels to help food businesses reduce the presence of acrylamide in their products.

All three videos share the same introductory part, after which they take a deeper dive into one of the following topics:

This video covers selection of appropriate varieties of potatoes intended for sliced potato crisps, including specifications on sugars and appropriate storage regimes to avoid sugar sweetening.

This video covers process design for sliced potato crisps, including fryer exit temperature and managing and measuring moisture content in fried potato slices. It also covers aspects such as colour sorting as a means for manufacturers to identify defects, individually and partially over fried potato slices and reject product which do not meet specifications.

This video covers recipe and process design for dough-based potato crisps, snacks, crackers and other dough-based potato products, including partial substitution of potato ingredients, and processing tools including asparaginase, acids, and calcium salts. The video also covers aspects such as managing and measuring moisture content in finished product.

Contact: Andrew Curtis, Director General, Potato Processors’ Association Ltd at: andrew@ppauk.org, andrew@snacma.org.uk or  +44 (0)70 3914 7088.