Schwartz for Chef About Us

Founded in Baltimore in 1889, McCormick is a global leader in the manufacture, marketing and distribution of spices, herbs, seasonings and other flavours to the entire food industry. Customers range from retail outlets and foodservice providers to food manufacturers.

In the Foodservice division of McCormick (UK) Ltd, we market a range of wet and dry products, including herbs & spices for chefs, restaurants and catering establishments. Schwartz for Chef is our flagship brand.

Schwartz for Chef helps you to create tastier food with a wide range of quality herbs, spices, seasonings, sauces and salad dressings.

McCormick (UK) Ltd also supplies the foodservice market with other leading brands such as Noel's, Bick's and Hammonds.

McCormick makes the distinction with

More than a century of expertise in sourcing Herbs and Spices

For over a century, McCormick experts have travelled around the world to learn about the cultivation, collection, and sorting of spices. Our goal is to source the best producers and products from over 100 countries to ensure variety, quality and consistency.

In 2000, to take quality to the highest level, McCormick created the Global Sourcing Ingredients Organisation, a dedicated herb and spice procurement company. A team of commodity managers look for valuable information and develop the best purchase strategies with the farmers, whilst providing both training and investment.

The company has long established supply lines at the countries of source, having created joint ventures in India and Indonesia, key strategic alliances in major spice growing countries, and a network of over 150 other suppliers.

A stringent quality policy

In order to supply the best products for customers and consumers around the world, McCormick uses its world-leading expertise and significant resources to maintain consistent high quality standards. Throughout the supply chain, raw materials are rigorously tested for safety, authenticity, taste, integrity and traceability.

Spices come from all over the world. Like all agricultural raw materials, they must be cleaned in order to avoid any potential risk of natural contamination. In Europe, McCormick has developed its own cleaning process, a steam sterilisation process. This technique is a natural process, which is perfectly adapted to herbs and spices and has been an element of our quality standards for a long time. The raw materials that we receive from around the world are cleaned of potential foreign materials and sorted. Steam sterilisation is the last step before packaging and is completed under strict hygiene conditions.

McCormick has developed a dedicated Central Analysis laboratory based in France which conducts over 50,000 separate analyses per year on more than 8,000 different product samples : herbs, spices, nuts, dried fruits, dry blends, wet condiments, sauces…Other external analyses are also carried out to meet specifics needs. We use the latest scientific techniques, including DNA testing, to ensure that only the purest raw material or ingredient is used.

Full traceability

McCormick’s information systems ensure full traceability from vendor lot to finished product lot. All raw material and product information and specifications are kept in a central information system. Analytical Quality Control results for each raw material lot are stored in our Laboratory Information System and ensure the information link between analytical results and vendor lot numbers.

A focus on innovation

Innovation is the life blood of our business. McCormick (UK) Ltd has dedicated kitchens, laboratories and culinary chefs focused on the development and introduction of innovative new products for our Brands and customers. In addition, a sensory department facilitates and supports these new developments.

More reasons to choose our brands, SFC, Noel's, Bick’s and Hammonds?

A reputation of excellence and unrivalled quality, heritage and global capabilities
Part of the largest herbs and spices, seasonings and flavour company in the world
Providing complete solutions and the highest quality for catering professionals
Offering a superior sales, marketing and customer service support
Innovating with dedicated foodservice development and culinary support teams
Proximity to chefs with a successful Flavour by Design^TM programme