Back-a-Yard Cuisine
Back-a-Yard Cuisine is a street food catering service in Nottingham city. They are renowned for their fried jerk chicken dumplings. Back-a-Yard Cuisine were interested in applying for Aldi's next big thing, and wanted to know what they would have to do to their dumplings to take them from freshly catered, to packed and ready for retail. The work was supported by funding from UKSPF.
Woking with Kavya on my dumplings project was a wonderful achievement and experience. Kavya was very informative and also made sure I had full understanding of the different types of testing to be done at each stage. I now have full understanding of the things needed to be done to maintain the moisture and flavours of my Reenie’s Dumplings. Thank you, Kavya, for you time and patience with me.
Project brief
The response
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FIC conducted an initial shelf-life review into the quality of the product both at chilled and frozen temperatures over 10 days. The products exterior staled quickly, and the filling lost its succulence.
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We then investigated how the formulation for the dough could be adapted to retain its quality as well as what could be done to the filling to increase its resilience (safety) and maintain juiciness (quality).
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Shereen was shown a new way of standardising her recipe and process, which is a crucial step when talking to manufacturers should she win Aldi's show.
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A list of equipment was suggested to semi-automate some steps of her current production process, making it easier and less tiring to produce a batch.
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Utilising our strong ingredient supplier network, we were able to identify a suitable solution to prevent staling in the dough, retain crispiness on reheating, and retain succulence in the filling throughout a day 10-day chilled shelf life.
- A plan for microbiological testing was also drawn up to give Shereen some initial shelf-life information on her product and she was connected to a UKAS laboratory near her that would be able to carry out what she needed
Benefit to the business
This work was carried out under Talent & Innovation funding from Nottingham city. Future work identified for Shereen includes working on the safety of the filling for a longer shelf life. With the initial results from microbiological testing, a standardised recipe, and some key quality indicators, Shereen will be able to approach Aldi’s Next Big Thing with more product information, making it easier for her to work with their co-manufacturers.