Tesco to trial premium Jamaican ready meals as interest grows in Caribbean cuisine

The range, which includes jerk chicken with rice and peas, Oxtail with rice and peas, and Curry goat with plain rice, will be trialled in Tesco in mid-November, Port Royal md Edward Johnston told FoodManufacture.co.uk.

“Tesco said that it wanted something authentic, so we have really gone for it with this range which is going to be stocked in a eparate module on a trial basis for two to three months. ​

"We did produce some ready meals for Sainsbury’s a while ago, but it didn’t work out.​ The buyers had an idea of what they thought Jamaican meals should contain and we kept having to change the recipes until we ended up with some real monstrosities. But we learned from that.”​

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Caribbean food​

The market for chilled Caribbean food was starting to grow in UK supermarkets with the launch of Floella Benjamin’s Caribbean Kitchen range in 2008 and the recent launch of the Levi Roots brand (produced by Kerry Foods) into chilled meals earlier this year, he said.

But there was a gap in the market for high-quality, authentic Jamaican meals.“The target market for our meals is the Caribbean community but also curious ABC1s.”​

Port Royal, which produces 17-20,000 patties a day for Morrisons, Asda and Tesco at its Willesden factory, is currently running one shift, five days a week, so could easily ramp up production to meet demand, said Johnston.

While Port Royal manufactures its own beef, chicken, lamb, saltfish and vegetarian patties, the meals will be manufactured by Edmonton-based firm Mrs Gill’s Kitchen on a contract basis, he said.

Port Royal turns over about £2m, he said.