Unbar Rothon Past, Present and Future

The company was form under the name of Underwood & Barker in 1921, it was acquired in 1946 by the Rothon family. The decision was made to take the name Unbar Rothon in 1976 as this not only pays tribute to its heritage, but also bears the family name of its current Managing Director.

Unbar Rothon is renown for its excellent products ranging from seasonings for the meat and canning industry, dry ingredient blends for the bakery and desserts industries and confectionary. “Our core products are seasonings, dry ingredient and liquid flavouring blends. We design, develop and manufacture all of our products and we have a great deal of experience in serving the meat, canning and pickling industries. We have a number of long-standing employees and this gives us access to a wealth of knowledge, allowing us to deliver the very best results to our clients,” states Mr Richard Rothon.

Many of its clients either directly or indirectly supply to the retail sector of the market, manufacturing products for multiples. “We also have a sister company, World of Spice and they supply herbs, spices and various blends, which are supplied in pots and go out to retailers or cash and carries. They also supply the catering trade and at this time they are doing extremely well and we are very proud to be associated with them.”

Mr Rothon goes into more detail about Unbar Rothon’s range of meat seasonings, shedding light on one of the keys to its continued success. “Every one of our products is custom developed from a standard range and all of our products are individual. In October alone we launched 55 new seasonings each of these had been developed specifically to the needs of our clients. Every month we are either developing new products or redeveloping and honing recipes for existing products.”

Ever responsive to the needs of the market, Unbar Rothon has launched a new range of flavours for sausages called Autumn Glow. Its four new tasty flavours include Cajun Herb, Red Pepper and Coriander, Caribbean style and Thai style. “This new range not only adds to the variety that is now sought by the public for household cooking, but we are also hoping that it will appeal to sausage makers who manufacture party food products. We are also hopeful that this range will encourage manufacturers we have not previously worked with to try our products as we find that once people have tasted what we produce they are eager to work with us.”

“I think that it is also important to note that not a single batch of existing or new flavours leave the Unbar plant without undergoing a taste test. We scrutinise our products carefully in order to ensure that each one lives up to the high standards we have set for ourselves and the quality required by our customers and end consumers. The Autumn Glow range has for example been taste tested in order to ensure that the sausages can be enjoyed in a variety of ways.” The Autumn Glow range is available in promotional 10-kilo pails as opposed to our normal minimum orders of 25 kilos.

“We are currently striving to produce healthier seasonings for use within the meat industry, whilst also ensuring that products are as tasty as ever. We have been focusing much of our effort on phosphate replacement and the removal of monosodium glutamate. We have conducted stage-by-stage trials and have been utilizing sodium-free yeast extracts as well as introducing modified starches,” explains Mr Rothon. The lengths that the company is going to are in an effort to help the industry meet with FSA guidelines without compromising on quality.

Further industry wide challenges have been created by recent allergen labelling legislation. Unbar Rothon has gone to great lengths in order to provide blends which allow allergy suffering consumers to eat ‘clean’ labelled products with confidence, culminating in a major redesign of the product flow at the plant. “This has allowed us to meet with the aim of ensuring ‘clean’ supplies to food manufacturers who might otherwise be required to label products with warnings about what the product may contain. We wanted to cut out the need for these warnings for the increasing numbers of allergy sufferers everywhere. The steps that we have taken allow our clients to market most of their products without requiring any ‘may contain’ warnings.”

Unbar Rothon has long-standing relationships with the majority of its suppliers, enabling it to supply clients with the highest possible quality goods. “It is essential to us to establish good relationships with our suppliers as with many of the ingredients we use the quality varies seasonally as does the availability of particular herbs and spices. It is our connections with suppliers that allow us to service our clients with a high standard of availability, quality and pricing all year round.”

Mr Rothon explains that the company also has exclusive distribution rights for a range of smoked concentrates and flavours which it has been successfully marketing across the UK. “We are looking to introduce more companies to the modern way of smoking products and we are offering assistance to companies looking to transfer production to the method. This is something we are very keen to do and have already gone though this process with a number of manufacturers.”

Unbar Rothon is looking toward its future and is keen to continue to provide its clients with the excellent service which has guaranteed it the loyalty of its customers. It wishes to continue to develop the diverse product ranges it is renowned for and will be developing new product concepts in order to enable its clients to distinguish themselves from their competitors whilst offering the consumer new and exciting products.