A spicy story about freedom of taste

DUTCH SPICES I PROFILE

It’s difficult not to be enchanted by the passion, enthusiasm and energy of the dynamic and talented management team at Dutch Spices. Their mission is simple: delivering freedom of taste to everyone, but especially to those suffering from severe food allergies, because everyone deserves access to real taste. The company’s CEO Elske Mouw, and Business Unit Manager Export, Piet Buis, spoke to Richard Hagan about the importance of its mission and revealed exciting news about its upcoming collaboration.

Asian inspired ginger lime chicken skewer

Ingredients 1kg Chicken tenderloins • 80-100g DS Mike’s marinade ginger & lime • 1 Lime • 4 Spring Oinions • 10 Slices of Prosciutto • Rosemary Preparation Marinate the chicken tenderloins with the DS Mike’s marinade ginger & lime and let them marinate for about 3 hours with spring onions in pieces and lemon in slices. Thread the chicken tenderloins on a stick and poke a sprig of rosemary in with the skewer. Wrap a slice of Prosciutto ham around the skewer and the Asian inspired ginger lime chicken skewer is ready.

Cooking Cook the Asian inspired ginger lime chicken skewer on a BBQ for about 8-10 minutes.

Dutch Spices, based in Nijkerk in the Netherlands, is a food solution production company with a clear vision: to offer a continuously evolving, delicious range of food products including spice mixes, seasonings, marinades and sauces, that are certified allergen-safe and can be enjoyed by everyone.

In addition to Dutch Spices’ guarantee that its products are safe from the top 14 allergens that affect the majority of the 17 million food allergy sufferers in Europe alone, the company’s products are also vegan and vegetarian friendly, as well as being Halal certified.

Ten years of allergen-safe production

Dutch Spices’ journey goes back ten years to its establishment in 2011.

The company was born out of its decadesold parent company and came about in response to growing consumer demands for gluten-free, allergen-safe products.

Thanks to its high-tech custom-designed and built manufacturing facilities, Dutch Spices has been awarded and has retained various certifications. A recent accolade was its receipt of the SimplyOK certification in 2018, an accreditation that recognises the company’s allergen management programs.

The company now boasts an ever-growing catalogue of great-tasting products including spices, stock and breadcrumb mixes, marinades, chutneys and sauces for various kinds of meat and meat alternatives, as well as potato, bread and pastry flavouring products.

The range is sold via a large network of resellers and distributors, ensuring that the company’s products are well-stocked throughout Ireland, Belgium, France, Bulgaria and Ukraine and more recently, the United Kingdom. Of course, Europe is a large place and the company is actively seeking relationships with additional partners in other countries to help get its products into the hands of consumers.

Piet Buis, Business Unit Manager Export at Dutch Spices, detailed the company’s objectives: “We are inspired by our products’ ability to promote culinary inclusivity,” he said.

“Our mission is to find retail and distribution partners who embrace our story so that together, we will help our partners achieve both of our goals. Together, we hope to make a huge contribution to the well-being and taste inclusion of millions of people around the world.”

DS Mike ’s mar inade g ing er & l ime

Trends in taste

According to company CEO Elske Mouw, Dutch Spices is riding a new wave of consumer enthusiasm for interesting new flavours.

“The consumer’s interest in spices, in general, is big,” she confirmed. “I see more willingness from customers to try new things; they’re looking for new trends more than ever before.”

Both Ms Mouw and Mr Buis are convinced that the massive popularity of televised cooking shows is playing a role in consumers’ demands for new seasonings and new flavours.

“Worldwide, there are so many cooking shows on TV, it’s made cooking at home extremely trendy, particularly with lockdowns forcing the closure of restaurants,” noted Mr Buis. “We’re now seeing a lot of demand for Asian flavours, especially teriyaki, miso and wasabi, and for Middle Eastern spices like harissa and ras el hanout.”

The company has a robust research and development department that is tasked with monitoring consumer demands and responding to them with new products.

“Our R&D people are actively listening to our customers,” Ms Mouw confirmed. “They watch the TV shows, they see what’s happening in the

DUTCH SPICES I PROFILE

DS Mike ’s chili-willi marinade

Chilli-Willi Pork Skewers

Ingredients 1kg Shoulder Chop (boneless) • 70-80g DS Mike’s chili-willi marinade

Preparation Slice the chops into slices of about 1.5 cm. Then cut these slices into thin strips, just like shawarma. Mix the finaly sliced meat strips with the DS Mike’s chili-willi marinade and thread onto skewers. Present the Chili-willi pork skewers on a beautiful bowl/saucer in your display case.

Cooking Prepare the chili-willi pork skewers on the BBQ for 8 minutes.

supermarkets and there are various other avenues they use.”

“We also have great Innovations Managers running a fantastic department,” acknowledged Mr Buis. “They’re smart and open-minded. One is Indonesian, with deep knowledge of the Asian taste profile and that works very well for us.”

In response to those consumer demands for more Asian flavours, the company is rolling out a new product development program specifically to address those needs. “We recently started a new project to develop Asian-Indian products, and Thai products,” Mr Buis clarified. “The next step from there will be further development of vegetarian-specific flavour products, and after that, I think we’ll also start to see more fruity flavours come out of our R&D efforts.”

Covid consumer cookery

Staying with the impact of Covid on the business, Ms Mouw and Mr Buis highlighted some trends that the company has observed as a result of Covid forcing more consumers to cook at home.

“We’ve noticed that consumers are buying higher quality products and in higher volumes,” Ms Mouw noted. “More restaurantquality food is being bought at supermarkets and butchers.”

“There’s been a particularly strong demand for our marinades and sauces,” said Mr Buis. “Consumers are doing a lot more cooking at home and consequently they’re buying in a way that is totally different to pre-Covid trends. That’s a good thing for our resellers. But due to Covid, we’ve also experienced longer lead times on some of our packaging materials, especially cardboard, and we’re experiencing unexpected price increases in some areas.”

The rebranding project

2022 sees Dutch Spices launch its bold new branding, including a new website that is expected to go live in 2022. It’s a campaign that has been in the making for some time and according to Ms Mouw, this launch can’t come soon enough.

“The new branding involves a new corporate identity and new brand positioning.

p e r mar ina de DS Mike’ s salt & bl ack p e p

Oriental Black Pepper Beef Stir Fry

Ingredients 500g Steak (in cubes) • 80-100g DS Mike’s salt & black peper marinade • 500g Oriental Wok Vegtables (bok choy, leek, yellow bel pepper, bean sprouts)

Preparation Mix the steak with the oriental wok vegetables. Mix the DS Mike’s salt & black pepper marinade through the meat and vegetable mixture. Present the wok dish Oriental black pepper beef stir fry in a large bowl.

Cooking Heat oil in a wok and fry the Oriental black pepper beef stir fry. Keep stirring it while baking.

It’s important because it appeals to a much larger consumer group,” she explained. “In the past, we focused on the message that our taste solutions are allergen safe. But now, the core message is that they’re for everyone. It’s about freedom of taste. Everyone can eat them, including vegans and those following Halal practices.

“Approximately 17 million people in Europe have food allergies, and that’s a large audience, but now that we’ve expanded our target market, the group of people for whom our taste solutions are suitable is much bigger. It’s really about inclusion. Our product is for everyone, even those who want gluten safe.”

DB Foods

The company has started a major distributor, DB Foods, in the United Kingdom. This collaboration will provide Dutch Spices with a significant market share in Great Britain.

DB Foods continue to innovate and develop their range and always welcome the challenge of sourcing new and exciting products to fulfil business needs and inspire customers with exciting taste adventures. DB Foods is proactively looking to market trends and new developments in ingredients ensuring they offer the best quality products, most cost effectively.

Meanwhile, climate change is a hot topic for the Dutch Spices team, as Ms Mouw highlighted: “Obviously we work with a large variety of raw materials, which are a product of nature. When the weather is too dry or too wet, harvests can be much smaller than anticipated, which places pressure on our production lines.”

With a successful export catalogue of proven products, Dutch Spices is confident that it has the products, the recipes and the brand equity to successfully win consumer hearts worldwide. n

Growth challenges

The company’s biggest challenge right now is not a lack of enthusiastic consumers, but rather simply reaching more consumers to tell them that the products exist.

“We have a unique brand proposition,” Mr Buis remarked. “People want to eat gluten safe or vegetarian. Those are fastgrowing trends and we have very good spices, herbs and marinades for them. But since we are still scaling up and not able to deliver to everyone all at once, we have to be selective about the markets we target and how we talk to them.”

Dutch Spices uses various methods, including data systems such as Innova, to help it make strategic decisions about what products it should target at various markets, and also about developing new ones.