Inside manufacturing: Ramona’s Kitchen

A decade ago, Hazan was making houmous from a small one-bedroom flat in north London, but now she operates from a factory in Watford, employing 15 staff and turning over £1.5M a year.

Ramona’s Kitchen draws on Hazan’s Mediterranean heritage, making houmous, falafel, dips, soups, salad dressings, vegetarian burgers, relish and sauces for retailers, wholesalers, sandwich shops and sandwich makers.

Rise in vegetarianism​

Buoyed by the rise in number of vegetarians/vegans, and food-to-go’s increasing market share, Hazan – who has a Turkish father but grew up in South Africa – believes she can grow the business to £5M in five years.

“I moved to London about 15 years ago, and took on a job as a computer engineer. I used my spare time to experiment with recipes in the flat I lived in with my husband, and it wasn’t long before there were chickpeas in bowls all over the place,”​ she explains.

“My first few recipes were quite rubbish, to be fair. But slowly, I got better and better. Eventually, when my friends would demolish everything put in front of them, I knew I was onto something. In fact, I still test all my new product development​ [NPD] on my friends and family today.”​

Food-to-go opportunity​

Meanwhile, a Scottish bakery manager has also said the food-to-go market presents a major opportunity for her business.

Tracey Lindle, who manages the day-to-day running of Cake – part of Glasgow-based Lomond Foods – told FoodManufacture.co.uk​ in this exclusive video interview​ that consumer demand for products that look like they are made by hand is driving growth in the sector.

Do you and your factory have a story to tell? If you think you would make a suitable Me and My Factory candidate, Food Manufacture’s associate editor Noli Dinkovski​ would love to hear from you.​