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Processing Vining Peas in East Yorkshire.

Harvested from the vine (hence the name) these are what you eat as 'frozen' peas. They taste so fresh because they are typically frozen within 150 minutes of being harvested.

The vining pea page shows peas being harvested - here you can see them being processed and frozen.

Peas Arriving at the factory.

The peas arrive and after being weighed the lorry tips its load of peas. The peas are taken from the intake hopper along an elevator which takes the peas to the first grading and washing process.

Any pods and stones are separated out by sieves which allow the peas to fall through but not pods or larger stones.

The peas are then washed before going through to the cooking, cooling an freezing process. The peas once into this part of the factory are treated with strict food hygiene rules and all staff where protective clothing and wash their hands on entering this part of the processing plant.

Peas being cooked and frozen.

The peas are cooked, or blanched as it is correctly termed, by going through the cooker which is a temperature of 96 C. The peas are then cooled to 15 C by going through the cooler. They then get a final grading which is very high tech and involves a laser and compressed air to remove any foreign particles or damages peas.

The peas are now spread out over a conveyor ready to go through the freezing plant which having a temperature of -45 C quickly freezes the peas in the 6 minutes it takes them to pass thorough the freezers.

The froze peas are then put into either small bags for catering use or large boxes for storage in the cold store at -25 C. These peas will be taken out and packed into retail bags as required.

All this happens within 150 minutes of the peas been harvested from the field - as fresh as it gets without you having to go to the field and pick the pods yourself!!

Peas being packed for you to enjoy

The peas are initially frozen and stored in large boxes. These boxes are stored in a cold store at -25 C

Then they bagged up into the smaller bags for you to buy at the shop.

 

Thanks to

Swaiththorp Growers for allowing us to film the viners harvesting

J E Hartley for allowing us to film the forzen pea process at their factory - visit web site