Grocery/Ambient Food
Grocery or Ambient category is the production of food that can be safely stored at room (or ambient) temperature. That means that you do not need to store these items in the fridge. The products in this area can range from pasta, rice, tinned products, tinned soups, sauces, snacks, and ingredients etc.
There are many different manufacturers within this category, they range from start-up businesses to huge, limited companies. For example, Rubies in the Rubble and Proper Snacks through to huge businesses like PepsiCo and AB World Foods.
Nim’s Foods won ambient manufacturer of the year for 2022 – they produce fruit and vegetable crisps.
Associated British Foods Plc is an International business that started as a small bakery in England in 1935. This business is now a multi-national company that operates in nearly all the Continents.
This International business supplies everything from huge grocery brands such as Twinings to brands such as Whitespoon that supply sugar to animal feed and they even have a huge presence in the clothes industry with their brand – Primark.
In ambient manufacturing there are different processes. In 2015 the British Retail Consortium Global Standards or BRCGS standard 7 included a new category, Ambient high-care, as a response to pathogenic contamination in ambient products, for example chocolate. Before 2015 this category didn’t exist due to the fact that the products are not chilled or frozen.
Within all categories of the food industry products are shelf life tested and this is no different for ambient products. The shelf-life testing determines how long the product can maintain its specific properties when stored correctly.
Other ambient manufacturers include cereal manufacturers such as Kellogg’s or Cereal Partners.
