Are Ready Meals Good For Us?

Yesterday I was invited to visit Saladworks – a company within the Samworth Brothers Group of companies here in Leicestershire. Samworth Brothers is a family company that have grown and developed over the last hundred years or so years to become the largest employer in Leicestershire with a workforce of some 5000 staff locally with a further 2000 employed in Cornwall. They have several factories that produce food for Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons and others.

Saladworks manufacture a variety of products and a group of us were guided around a couple of the factories. We all looked particularly attractive in our hairnets, white boots and overalls! We saw where the basic ingredients arrive, where they are stored, how the food is prepared and cooked, how pasta is made and measured, how every ingredient is carefully monitored so that if, at any stage – now or in the future - the product ingredients need to be back-checked, a full history of its journey is easily accessible. We watched as ready meals were carefully, and proudly, placed in containers with every component either weighed, counted or measured, to ensure the quantity tallies with the details on the pack – very important for dieters! – and the content composed consistently.

Millions of ready meals, gallons of sauces, tonnes of ingredients are prepared there. The organisation and logistical challenge of creating food of this magnitude is extraordinary. The whole operation is awesome. I was particularly impressed by the quality of the produce that was being manufactured. It was naturally healthy food that had been carefully prepared to make a delicious meal for us to select from our favourite supermarket or store. These were not just any ready meals, these were special.

But Samworth Brothers are not just about producing fine food, they have a very special ethos and they take a real pride in their workforce. Everyone we met, whether they were placing prawns on a paella or weighing out cooked rice, checking the seals on the finished product or washing down the machines, they were happy and you could just feel that they felt valued. There’s even a Samworth Academy which supports the staff by encouraging further education and training. The company believes in investing into their staff and it obviously works. Also, the staff organise charity activities together and raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity. As we all know, these kinds of activities build the relationship of any workforce.

Having happy staff is key to the success of any business and it is something that we hold very dear in our company too. If everybody is working together toward a common goal, we can all achieve tremendous success and make a real difference in a lot of peoples’ lives. Isn’t great when you can have fun doing it too?