Dad saw his kids cooking and came up with 'incredible' idea
A dad knew what to do after seeing what his children were eating.
Noel Davis, 50, who lives in Formby, has over 30 years of experience in food manufacturing and distribution across several different businesses. Much of his focus was on buying frozen products for Farmfoods and other outlets, often creating his own original brands.
However, the last few years saw Noel adopt a different approach. Speaking to the ECHO, Noel said: “I started to buy products from all over the world and package them under our own bands. We then opened our own shops under the banner of ‘Oops.’”
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“When covid hit, particularly with all of the high energy prices, we decided, instead of supplying into our own shops, we would supply our own range of frozen foods into independent shops, such as Stirling Meats. We’ve been looking at hot food counters which sell things such as salt and pepper chicken and chips.”
Oops Food Clearance is located in St Helens, with the products made in the KP Frozen Food facility in Birkenhead. But it is when he spotted what his children - Dara, 18, Aoife, 17 and Rory, 15 - were having for their tea that sparked a change in approach.
He said: “They tend to stick chicken into the air fryer. I kind of noticed they were doing it two or three times a night. The volume and the quality of the food - they were taking the products we were already supplying and adding in salt and paper seasoning, and the end product was fantastic.
“Then I started to read the reports about 12.5m households using air fryers. It’s a colossal opportunity.”
As a result, under the brand of MJ's Diner, Noel has created Air Fryer Ready Meals, which launched last Monday, April 8. Instead of buying products separately and putting them into an Air Fryer, these contain all the ingredients needed for a meal in a bag which is stored in the freezer.
14 different options are on offer, including salt and pepper chicken, beef meatballs and katsu chicken curry. All of these come with chips.
Noel claims these meals offer a far higher quality than microwave meals, and has already received positive feedback via free samples at the St Helen’s store and the 50,000 units supplied to Farmfoods. He argued it was a "certainty" these would be a success due to the quality that comes from using an air fryer. He said: “Traditional ready meals have been produced using automated machinery where the product needs to be cooked in a microwave.
“They have to be sauce based products, such as a curry. You could never get a crispy ready meal. With the air fryer, you can. It just delivers a vastly superior meal. It's just as good as any you'll get from a chip shop."
Noel claimed, despite only launching one week ago, there is already huge demand for the meals. He said: "We took a range of 14 products and produced it in Birkenhead. Then we trialled it in St Helens.
“We sell a lot of frozen food. We have broken all sorts of records. From last week, we’re doing seven, eight times more than best selling products such as Bisto - products that have been on the market for many years.
“We expect it to be everywhere quite quickly. It's absolutely flying out. We need to get as much volume behind it before other big brands start to copy it. We’re absolutely the first. We've had to recruit an extra 50 staff in Birkenhead to cope with demand.
“The feedback we’re getting is incredible. The reason others haven't already done so is that they've spent a lot of money building premises that are geared towards wet meals - sauce based. To translate to the dry products which we've got, they don't have much use for existing premises.”
Noel claims he is already in talks with the likes of Home Bargains, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s to supply the Air Fryer Ready Meals there. New options are also on the way including a meal containing kebab meat, chips and matcha sauce.
Noel admitted he had been taken by surprise by the popularity of air fryers in recent years. He said: “When you look at any other gadgets you see, they're all gimmicks that have a short lifespan.
“But because an airfryer does the same job as an oven only way more efficiently, quicker and simpler to use, the growth in air fryers is not going to stop. It's so convenient for students or people living alone. It's gone through the roof.”
Noel is grateful that he spotted his children’s love of air fryers. He said: “For me, the fact they were using the air fryer that much, it reiterated the convenience of the product and the quality of it too.”
Air Fryer Ready Meals are available in a number of shops such as Farmfoods and at Oops Food Clearance at 1 Ardwick Street in St Helens.
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