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CHIC-O-ROLL
COMPANY LTD
In
February 1986 Lyons acquired the
ready-meal frozen food business of
Chic-O-Roll Company Ltd. Specialising in
ethnic foods Chic-O-Roll was started in
1972 by Emanuel Best and Roy Lee Young,
who ran a Chinese restaurant in Malta.
Together, after a year's preparation they
began making eight Chinese dishes in a
small factory in St Albans, Hertfordshire,
for sale to supermarkets. Among the first
dishes were Chop Suey, Sweet & Sour
and Curry Chicken. All were prepared in
the boil-in-the-bag method. They were sold
under the brand name of Mr Chang and by
the time Lyons bought the company their
turnover was £5 million. The
acquisition was intended to form the
nucleus for a new Lyons chilled/frozen
business which as the market for chilled
foods continued to grow.
A
few months after the acquisition, Lyons
approved a £1/4 million investment
programme to bring the factory up the EEC
standards enabling their products to be
sold in Europe. The whole factory area was
air-conditioned and given a new flooring
of a pale yellow plastic material which
was not only hygienic and easy to keep
clean but was easy on the feet of people
working there. New ceilings were
incorporated with the latest factory
lighting and four new vegetable steamers
were installed. The new facilities were
opened by Peter Lilley, Member of
Parliament for St Albans, at the beginning
of October 1986 who unveiled a small
plaque on the wall of the conference room.
During
the period leading up to the factory
upgrading, Chic-O-Roll launched two new
ranges of its frozen convenience foods.
One of the new ranges went under the
general title of Bistro Menu, an up-market
product aimed at people living alone or
working couples too busy to prepare high
quality dishes. The six dishes in the
range were: Beef with Peppered Sauce;
Spiced Maple Chicken; Shellfish
Tagliatelli; Lamb Provencale; Beef
Carbonade and Spiced Pork Casserole.
Prepared in one potion packs they had no
artificial additives, preservatives or
colourings.
The
other new range was called Kalorie Kitchen
and was aimed at the growing number of
consumers interested in healthier eating.
The calorie count of all six dishes being
around 300. They were: Prawn Creole;
Vegetable Gratin; Italian Chicken; Ragout
of Lamb; Lemon Chicken and Gammon in Spicy
Sauce. The packaging of these lines also
proclaimed no artificial additives or
colourings.
As
well as the launch of the new food ranges
in 1988 four variations on Barbecued Spare
Ribs were also launched earlier in the
year.
Chic-O-Roll
Ltd had a subsidiary company called Ebee
Speciality Foods Ltd which acted as the
sales and marketing arm. About 25% of
output, which was 3,000 tonnes a year, was for the own label market. The business had 85
staff and had cold stores as well as
production facilities in the St Albans
Area.
The
business was sold during the disposal of
Lyons' assets during the 1990s.
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