Frank Dale celebrates 30 years in foodservice

A premium UK producer is celebrating its 30^th anniversary with new branding and packaging as it reflects on the past three decades.

Frank Dale, the buffet and party food specialist, which has its roots in a Norfolk farming family, is one of the UK’s leading producers of quiches and mini sweet and savoury canapés for catering.

But the well-known heritage brand dates back to 1994 when the Dale family diversified from farming to food…initially by baking a quiche from a dozen farm eggs.Innovation and determination established the brand within the foodservice sector and the rest is history.

Thirty years on and Frank Dale now uses 200,000 eggs every year to make 12 million premium quiches for the food service sector, alongside an extensive collection of mini sweet and savoury products, such as mini scones, mini cakes, mini pies and mini Yorkshire puddings.

The company has enjoyed a proven track record for the creation of exceptional frozen and chilled British-made baked goods to celebrate a wide variety of occasions. Renowned for its miniatures, loved for its commitment to sourcing local and UK premium ingredients, and revered for the opportunity it represents to help food service operators serve fantastic tasting buffet food with chef-cooked credentials, Frank Dale has earned a reputation as the reliable go-to for any catered event or foodservice setting.

Now, as it marks the past 30 years and looks to a bright future, the Frank Dale brand has introduced new branding to give itself a more contemporary identity and invested in stronger, clearer packaging to make it easier for chefs and caterers to use. This supports the brand’s recent move to 100% clear recyclable plastic and to using 100% recycled board.

Frank Dale MD, Edward Miles say: “How does the UK’s best known party food brand celebrate a milestone birthday? It’s too easy to throw a party. Instead, we wanted to further invest in this iconic brand, so we’ve updated our branding and invested in new packaging, while at the same time improving our sustainability and environmental credentials.

“We also launched a new website earlier this year which showcases our current ranges in use and features an online brochure. It also highlights the brand’s historical innovation to provide the industry with an insight into the wider brand possibilities. New contemporary product photography reflects the quality of the Frank Dale range.

“Maintaining quality is hugely important to us, as caterers are often passing off our products as their own. They don’t want to risk reputational damage by supplying lower quality imports, so we are committed to creating products that any chef or food service professional is proud to serve.

“Across 30 years the brand has experienced its challenges, but Frank Dale has always had a reputation for quality and making as much in-house as possible.

“Whilst the Frank Dale Foods Company collapsed back in 2017, the strength of the Frank Dale brand, alongside great staff gave me the confidence that the business had a strong future ahead.  Finedale Foods, which took on the brand, has changed the business model, and has heavily invested in both the factory and the Frank Dale brand, giving them both longevity.

Miles continues:“Demand for foodservice was virtually wiped out during the Covid pandemic, but the operating model of Frank Dale changed and improved by the development of a partnership with the scaled frozen food distributor Central Foods. This immediately uplifted the service to the whole sector, removing all the old barriers and widening the appeal of Frank Dale.

“The hospitality and catering sectors has in recent times suffered from a lack of experienced staff and rising costs, but this has been a bonus for us and has led to a huge uplift in sales, as our Premium Range provides caterers with high quality, food safe, frozen products for the events and catering industry.”

Frank Dale benefits from the ‘all year round’ occasions calendar – supplying weddings, wakes and memorials, corporate events, graduation ceremonies, sports hospitality, business lunches and more, providing a superb range of sweet and savoury mini ‘thaw and serve’ and ‘heat and eat’ products alongside its well-regarded quiche selections.

“Caterers can buy our range, with clear upfront costs and low wastage, plus it’s safe to handle,” added Miles. “It derisks the whole exercise. We do the hard work which makes it easy and convenient for food service operators to serve quality buffet and party food.”

The future Frank Dale brand plans are innovation focused – with ideas to further modernise the range but also make it more relevant to the future needs of the foodservice sector.

“We can see how event catering is changing, and we need to innovate to further grow the brand’s appeal,” explains Miles.

“Frank Dale has always had a reputation for quality and making as much in house as possible. A number of our products have had enhancements to give further premiumisation and differentiation in the foodservice market. This includes the redevelopment of our famous mini salmon bagels, which will use a fresh in-house produced bagel to elevate the product quality to new heights. Alongside two new products to the range, this package of changes is ready for Christmas with further launches planned for 2025.”

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