About this project
Explore the people, research centres and partner organisations behind this project.
In collaboration with
South Yorkshire Innovation Programme
Toby Hattersley, Greencore Technical
“SYIP funding has given us the capability to engage with the experts and the necessary equipment for projects that would be difficult to complete in house. It has inspired us to explore additional new innovations and business development across recipe formulation and factory processes. We look forward to discussing with AFIC about how we can collaborate further.”
Get in touch
Contact the AFIC to discuss collaborations, facilities, funding and learning.
Email AFICWorking with Greencore through the South Yorkshire Innovation Programme
About this project
Explore the people, research centres and partner organisations behind this project.
In collaboration with
South Yorkshire Innovation Programme
Toby Hattersley, Greencore Technical
“SYIP funding has given us the capability to engage with the experts and the necessary equipment for projects that would be difficult to complete in house. It has inspired us to explore additional new innovations and business development across recipe formulation and factory processes. We look forward to discussing with AFIC about how we can collaborate further.”
Get in touch
Contact the AFIC to discuss collaborations, facilities, funding and learning.
Email AFICGreencore is the UK’s leading convenience food manufacturer. They bring industry-leading innovation to create high-quality, fresh and convenient food to customers and consumers. Supplying all major UK supermarkets, convenience and travel retail outlets, discounters, coffee shops, foodservice providers, and other retailers. Greencore’s portfolio spans products across all meal occasions, including sandwiches, salads, sushi, chilled snacking, ready meals, pizza and bread, chilled soups and sauces, quiche, ambient sauces, pickles, frozen Yorkshire puddings, dips and desserts.
In addition, they’re a well-established national manufacturer of fresh meals to grocery retailers in the US, producing fresh meals, breads, dips soups, sauces and burritos out of manufacturing facilities in California, Texas and North Carolina. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, the combined entity generated approximately £4 billion in revenue in FY25 and employs around 28,000 people.
The challenge
The South Yorkshire Innovation Programme (SYIP) presented a fantastic opportunity for Sheffield Hallam’s Advanced Food Innovation Centre (AFIC) and Greencore to once again join forces - having previously collaborated on an IUK funded project exploring salt and fat reduction of cheese (LINK).
In a bid to understand potential options for increasing chilled shelf life, Greencore wanted to explore thermal processing of several varieties of rice across a range of cooking methods.
What SYIP consultancy was able to do
Taking time away from production is a significant challenge for food companies - often they don’t have space to experiment and explore ideas.
SYIP gave Greencore access to lab equipment and research design that wasn’t available to them on a daily basis. AFIC consultant, Andy Millman, was able to develop an innovative methodology, undertake the assessments and provide the data needed.
Andy was able to combine parameters of quality, time, temperature and change in weight of rice during process. Whilst many of these values are derivable from factory process, the ability to accurately measure the change of rice grain weight in particular, was a game changer.
Thermal processing is very complex and the novel approach to gathering information on thermal efficacy provides reassurance and support for future approaches and risk mitigation.
Impact
The project provided insight into the comparability of different processing methods in the context of factory processing operations.
Greencore has a clear data set that they can utilise to make future production decisions.
The innovative methodology can be used to assess other varieties of rice, offering the full complement of insights to shape recipe decisions and therefore shelf-life.
Future plans
Exciting times lie ahead for Greencore since they combined with Bakkavor in January 2026 to form the UK’s leading convenience food manufacturer.
The findings from this SYIP project could influence production processes and offer the potential for a new cooking schedule that will impact positively on waste and energy use.