Market and variety developments provide welcome boost for premium OSR growing
Posted 6 years ago
15/06/2020
The addition of an ultra-long life frying oil to the UK’s premium Frymax brand for fish and chip shops across the country is set to provide a welcome boost for High Oleic Low Linolenic (HOLL) rapeseed growing; especially as initial ADM market testing shows such significant advantages over traditional oils and particular enthusiasm for the new product.
At the same time, the first of a new generation of varieties from leading breeder, Bayer offers even higher outputs than previous UK Recommended List leader, V316OL. And it does so with valuable improvements in its agronomic package for greater reliability under the challenging conditions faced by OSR growers today.
Joining the Frymax brand’s established market-leading Palm Oil and Liquid Vegetable Oil products from this autumn, 100% HOLL High Oleic Rapeseed Oil (HORO) has demonstrated a 300% longer frying life than ordinary rapeseed oil.
As well as one of the healthiest oil profiles on the market, it also offers the trade particularly high quality frying with less waste and complete UK provenance and traceability.
“We are really excited about Frymax HORO,” says ADM UK brand and marketing manager, Andrew Marriott. “And more importantly, the fish and chip shops who have tried it and the leading distributor through whom it will be exclusively available are very keen on the product.
“As we’d hoped, the combination of top-quality frying, Red Tractor-certified UK production and valuable savings in overall cost-in-use looks like being a big hit. A much longer life and less waste than standard rapeseed oil adds up to savings fryers tell us are well worth paying a premium for. On top of this the oil is proving especially easy to use and the fully recyclable packaging simplicity itself to dispose of. What’s not to like?”
‘A fantastic oil great for my business and great for customers’. ‘Great performance every time I fried’. ‘I cannot believe how long the oil lasted’. ‘My customers will love the fact that it’s fully sustainable and UK sourced - what a great message’.
These are just some of the comments Mr Marriott and his ADM colleagues have received from fish and chop shops involved in their testing so far. One even calculated that using the new oil would save them several thousands of pounds a year.
“Coronavirus may have got in the way of our original launch timescale,” he reports. “Even so, we plan to have Frymax HORO in the market strongly this year. From the reaction we’ve had from those who’ve tried it so far, we can see it rapidly gaining loyal customers throughout the fish and chip trade, not to mention the wider food service industry.”
This is excellent news for UK HOLL growers, suggesting an increasing stability of premium-earning contracts for the specialist rapeseed from 2021, not to mention significant opportunities for future growth.
Closed-loop, fixed-premium HOLL-growing contracts making the most of a fully-integrated UK agriculture supply chain from growers to ADM crushing and dedicated packing ensures rapeseed supply is closely related to demand for the oil.
The consistency of returns these arrangements provide is especially appreciated by growers who have to put up with wide variations in premiums for traditional food crops like milling wheat and malting barley.
At the same time, though, they mean that season-to-season contract availability and premium levels fundamentally depend on demand for the oil which has, to date, been limited by both its availability and a relatively narrow range of UK customers.
“Our research suggested the oil could have much broader appeal if its virtues were put over in the right way to the billion pound fish and chip market amongst other take-away and fast-food channels,” explains Mr Marriott. “Judging from the initial enthusiasm we’ve seen, we are confident that introducing HORO into the country’s market-leading Frymax range will do exactly this.”
Such a welcome development on the market side comes alongside Bayer’s launch of the next step forward in HOLL genetics for the 2021 crop.
Building on the proven gross output value of previous RL leader, V316OL, the new variety V367OL available for the first time for this autumn’s plantings offers higher performance and an improved agronomic package.
In particular, the addition of Dekalb’s rapid autumn leaf development trait will be especially valued by those wanting the best ability to grow away from early pest attack and other establishment challenges. For the greatest security at the other end of the season, the variety also now carries the breeding programme’s pioneering pod shatter resistance to minimise seed losses in the run-up to and at harvesting.
“V367OL joins our portfolio at just the right time for growers keen to take the greatest possible advantage of HOLL premiums to satisfy what is shaping-up to be an increasingly stable and growing UK market,” points out Bayer campaign manager, Edward Hagues.
“Contracts offering attractive premiums on top of oil bonuses are available for harvest 2021 from seed suppliers across the country.”