Almond / Cashew Paste ‘nooj’ debuts in Sainsbury’s

First Supermarket Listing for Game-Changing, Dairy-Free Start Up

nooj – an innovative Almond or Cashew dairy alternative has secured its first supermarket listing at Sainsbury’s, which launches this April across 150 of its stores as part of the supermarket’s much vaunted Future Brands scheme, which provides a dynamic sales platform for innovative food & drinks brands of tomorrow.

nooj is essentially a creamy smooth, ready-to-use almond or cashew nut paste containing 64 – 66 % nuts. The product can easily be made into a luxurious nut drink by adding water according to taste with each 150g capable of making up to 1.5 litres (6% nut content).
Straight from the fridge, nooj also offers great versatility as a cooking and baking ingredient providing instant velvety creaminess when added to porridge, smoothies, curries, soups, sauces, fillings. Moreover, the versatility of nooj means that the simple addition of citrus juice, oil, vinegar, herbs, garlic, can result in the creation of various delicious home-made sauces and spreads that can stand in for a variety of traditional dairy products such as cream, yoghurt, cream cheese, mayonnaise, bechamel, ricotta….

The nooj pouch enables nut paste to be conveniently stored in the fridge door. Better still is the fact that nooj is fervently committed to less waste, with more of the nut being used in production (not filtered out). The handy packs meanwhile can be recycled along with ‘soft plastics’ at all participating Sainsbury’s stores.

It’s worth noting that nooj packs contain relatively little water as the pastes are essentially concentrates, to which tap water is added to make sumptuous nut drinks. Reduced weight and volume makes the product a more planet-friendly alternative in terms of lower emissions and the needless trapping of precious water.

Yorkshire-based Caroline Barton, founder of nooj said: ‘We are delighted to be welcomed onto the shelves of Sainsbury’s, which provides us with the high-profile national presence we have craved for so long. nooj is a truly innovative addition to the dairy alternative category, that not only provides consumers with meaningful choice when it comes to selecting dairy-free products but gives real impetus to nut-based milks that has started to fall behind its oat and soya-based peers. Creating such a category hasn’t been without its tribulations (11th hour technical snags, recipe tweaks, packaging improvements, suitable production partner….) but we’ve got over the line and throughout this process Sainsbury’s have stayed by our side.

nooj is available in handy-sized 150g packs (RRP: Sainsbury’s £3.50). nooj products can found in the chilled cabinets alongside other plant-based drinks.
For more on nooj, including nutritional information, recipe ideas and a list of Sainsbury’s stockists, please visit www.noojfood.co.uk

Author

  • Ian Hills

    Ian Hills is an experienced food marketer and writer, a vocal champion for ‘amazing brands of tomorrow.’ The bigger Pilchard vision is to change the nation’s food & drink landscape for the better helping emerging ‘real food’ brands step out of the shadows and enjoy some positive attention they so richly deserve. Too many mediocre mainstream brands are living off past glories and historical low bars. Today’s consumer deserves so much more in terms of intriguing flavours, nutritional gravitas and sustainable, planet-friendly thinking.