Boosting the fibre in Aunt Bessie’s Meat-Free Toad in the Hole

As Europe’s largest frozen food company, Nomad Foods is proud to serve the world with better food and is committed to helping their millions of consumers eat a little more goodness every day. One of Nomad Foods’ brands, Aunt Bessie’s, offers a range of classic British meals, mains and sides, meeting different tastes and dietary needs. This includes a meat-free version of their iconic Toad in the Hole.

In 2023, one of the key elements of this product – the meat-free sausage- needed to be replaced owing to supplier challenges; this provided a great opportunity to deliver a nutrition improvement, on top of the product already being non-HFSS. The development team assessed the suitability of different meat-free sausages available in the market, as well ones already being produced within the Nomad Foods group. They concluded that the recently renovated Green Cuisine Meat Free Sausage, which is also produced by Nomad Foods, was a great fit as it provided over four times the amount of fibre and more protein than the original meat-free sausage, while also having a flavour and texture that scored positively in internal sensory reviews.

This sausage change in the Aunt Bessie’s Meat Free Toad in the Hole resulted in a 370% increase in fibre content, from 0.7g to 3.3g per 100g, meaning it’s now a source of fibre. This translates into 6.2g fibre per portion (190g), which equates to 20% of the daily 30g fibre intake recommendation in the UK. 2023 volume sales data shows that Aunt Bessie’s Meat Free Toad in the Hole alone has added more than 650,000 portions of fibre onto the nation’s plates.