Articles currently on the News Page:

January 2012 - Champagne Foods can now offer Diced Tomato from our Spanish Principal - Agraz

As you may already know, Champagne Foods has been the exclusive agent for Agraz for several years – offering Tomato powder and paste to the UK food industry.

We are now also able to offer Diced tomato in natural juice. These high quality diced pieces in juice come in a variety of sizes and are 100% Spanish grown tomatoes.

The products are prepared from fresh tomatoes, cut and then packed in their juice in aseptic bags after sterilization.

All are available with or without Calcium Chloride (at buyer’s request) and are in 5 – 7 brix tomato juice.

Hot break is used for ketchup, thick sauces and soups in which more thickness is required.

At the end of December, Mike officially retired from Champagne Foods although we will remain in contact as he has agreed to continue to look after one specific client for us.

We wish him many years of happiness, together with his wife Jan, and I am sure that he will be sorely missed by his many friends after more than 40 years in the ingredients business.

We will certainly miss his gentlemanly presence and his quiet wit and wisdom.

November 2011 - AVT McCormick Black Pepper, Turmeric and Ginger Market Report

Cascade Specialities Inc. launched a new website in June 2011. Please visit it by clicking the link here or use the link from the Principal/Products tab.

For those of you who enjoy a game of charades, this has 4 syllables and is pronounced kal’eee – zay’ah. The origins are from the old newsletter title Qualizea where Quali- has been internationalized into Kali- and -zea comes from the latin Zea mais.

The products will remain the same high quality & consistent maize grits and flours that we have come to know and love so well.

In the fullness of time, contact details and the company paperwork from letters to contracts & invoices will feature the new name as will all of the sack packaging when current stocks are exhausted. We will attempt to keep you updated with all of this.

We would be grateful if you could bring this small but significant change to the attention of all the relevant people in your organization.

It was in May 1991 that I "gave up the day job" and Champagne Foods Ltd. started operations on Monday 20th of that month. With one supplying Principal and a customer base of two companies, it was a humble start and to say that the birth was difficult would be an understatement. It was just as well that Mrs. Yeomans did not also leave corporate life to join me full time.

In fact the first couple of years were fairly torrid but, ever so slowly and with long days including weekend work, things got better and, by about 1996, we had more Principals, more clients and the beginnings of a team. I had started sleeping again and the bank had relinquished its claim to the roof over our heads.

Progress really started in 1998 when we moved from a simple brokerage business operating only with European Principals to a more accomplished sales, marketing, importing and distribution business model. In 2001, we moved to larger premises and then, when Gary came on board in 2002, we took several more huge strides forward.

In 2008, Paul and Mike joined us to take our sales efforts in new directions. We built a team of great sales and support people and we also built a reputation as a knowledge based supplier of high quality ingredients. Along the way, we had a good deal of fun (as well as a few tears) whilst continuing to work hard on our commitment to provide consistently high levels of product quality and customer service.

It has been inordinately fulfilling most of the time, frustrating on occasions, exhausting and elating in equal measure - and I am so glad that, with the support of Annabelle, I made the break, we took the risk and we gave it everything we could throw at it. But now the company is not just about me (one customer told me recently that he thought I had retired already!).

Annabelle and I give enormous thanks to the continued support of our supplying Principals and our valued customers. We also want to recognise the commitment of all the team members whilst also acknowledging the contributions from everybody involved over the years - even the bank manager!

So here's to the next 20 years!

John Yeomans

April 2011 - CFL Has a New Herb Supplier - Spice Kingdom

The CFL ingredients portfolio divides itself into two broad groups of products, namely "functional cereal ingredients" and "seasoning ingredients".

The “seasoning ingredients” group includes our established products such as steam sterilised spices, spice oleoresins & essential oils, tomato powder, dehydrated onion & garlic as well as paprika products and speciality chillies. The key omission from this group has been that of herb products; and this was not for lack of trying! In the past there have been very few suppliers who could have complied with our quality requirements and the few who might have been able partners had existing distribution arrangements for the UK market.

However, we are delighted to advise that we have now found a very capable dehydrated herb supplier in the form of Spice Kingdom. Operating out of a purpose built facility completed in 2007 on a Cairo industrial estate, and using a state of the art ERP system, we believe that this third generation family business will enable us to offer a full range of herb products to complement our range of seasoning ingredients.

Please click on the "Principals" section to learn more and then please send us the enquiry!

click on each product to access the AVT McCormick reports, black pepper and Turmeric.