Salad Croutons
Chaucer Foods has a record second to none in developing innovative ingredients that enhance the appearance and eating characteristics of fresh salads.
These croutons are sometimes eaten as snacks and are often seen on the salad bars of restaurants and food service outlets. Used as a salad accompaniment, they are also packed into sachets in retail prepacked salads.
Salad croutons are made from specially formulated loaves of bread, designed to produce a light crunchy textured crouton. Available in numerous shapes and sizes, they are produced in a wide variety of interesting and novel flavours.
There are numerous varieties of salad crouton depending on individual requirements. Products can be specially formulated to individual customer specification.
The following has been designed to help you select the variety of crouton that specifically fits your requirements.
What shape?
Traditional croutons are produced as cubed shape.
Round croutons are also popular salad accompaniments.
In recent years, more irregular shaped products have become popular giving a more natural, rustic appearance resembling traditional homemade croutons.
What size?
The most popular sizes of salad croutons are 10mm cubed, 13mm cubed and 18mm cubed. 10mm x 18mm x 18mm and 12mm x 24mm x 24mm are also popular varieties. Larger sized croutons (18mm and 24mm) tend to be favoured by American consumers, whilst European producers tend to use smaller sizes. 13mm cubed croutons are particularly popular in food service-type applications.
Rounded croutons 20mm in diameter are extensively used by salad producers.
What oil content?
Salad croutons are oil coated in vegetable oil rather than fried, and typically contain 14-25% oil content. Lower oil content varieties are available for low fat and calorie-controlled applications.
The oil used to produce salad croutons is usually soft palm oil.
What texture?
Salad croutons are light and crisp in texture and mouth-feel. The croutons are designed to retain their texture when mixed with the salad by the consumer.
What bread type?
Most croutons are manufactured from specially formulated white breads. Rye and wholemeal varieties are also popular for crouton production. Croutons manufactured from other speciality breads are becoming increasingly popular.
Examples include ciabatta and foccacia breads from Italy and fougasse from France.
What colour?
Croutons can be formulated to vary from dark brown to almost white. Typical colours include golden yellow, orange and red. Pieces of herbs and other inclusions such as olive pieces can be included in croutons to further enhance their visual appeal and flavour.
What flavours?
The largest selling variety of salad crouton is lightly salted. However, there is significant demand for flavoured products.
The most popular flavours of salad croutons are:
Bacon Pizza Italian herb Buttery garlic Sun Dried Tomato
Tandoori Black Olive Garlic & herb Cheese
For more information on salad crouton flavours click here.
What marketing claims?
Chaucer Foods can produce salad croutons to organic or kosher specifications. Reduced fat and low fat varieties are also available for slimming and 'calorie controlled' applications.
All Chaucer Food's croutons are formulated free from genetically modified ingredients.
What other speciality products?
The Chaucer Food's product range of salad croutons contains a number of speciality products designed to give enhanced appeal to salads. These include Lite Bite croutons, Home Style croutons, Pita Bread croutons and Baked In croutons. For more information on speciality salad croutons click here.
What ingredients declaration?
A typical ingredients declaration for an unflavoured salad crouton is: Wheat flour, Vegetable Oil, Salt, Yeast. Declarations will vary depending on bread type and flavour composition.
What packaging?
Salad croutons are packed by Chaucer in a wide variety of packing formats. These include sachets of 10g to 1kg, up to bulk quantities of 500kg. A wide variety of packaging formats are available in between these weight sizes.
Chaucer Foods has the capability to pack salad croutons in a number of retail-type formats depending on customer requirement.
What shelf life?
Salad croutons have a typical shelf life of 12 months under normal storage conditions avoiding heat and direct sun light. When packed in clear sachets, salad croutons have a shelf life of 3 months.
What quality assurance?
Chaucer Food's quality assurance team take pride in ensuring all products are delivered to customers in optimum condition.
All production batches are assessed by a daily taste panel against organoleptic standards for taste texture and product appearance.
All products are tested to ensure conformance to microbiological standards.
All deliveries of oil are tested for conformance to specification for peroxide values and lauric acid levels (important indicators of oil quality and shelf life).
Chaucer Food's UK manufacturing site is BRC (Higher) and ISO 9001 2000 accredited.
Why Chaucer?
Track record of creativity, novelty and innovation in
developing exciting new ingredients for salads.
Pioneer of many of the crouton developments of the
last decade.
Supplier to many leading salad processors and packers.
Over 20 years experience in manufacturing.
Comprehensive product range to suit all applications.
Packaging flexibility from small sachets to bulk packs for
industrial, retail and food service formats.
Commitment to quality.
Producer of complimentary products such as salad sprinkles
and snippets.
Do you need further information?
Click here if you have specific requirements or wish to receive samples and/or specifications of Chaucer Food's Products.