About Us
WE WANT TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR EVERYONE TO EXPERIENCE AUTHENTIC PERSIAN FOOD.
The Shuro Shirin Family
PERSIAN CUISINE: A HISTORY
If you have a dig around, it really is amazing how many types of cuisine trail back to Persia. It is right to say that Persian food and culture shares a lot of mutual ground with Indian, Turkish and Lebanese cultures and historians do fail to produce concrete evidence on the exact origins of particular dishes. However, what we do know, is that Persian food IS distinct; not Arabian, Indian or Ottoman and deserves more of the limelight. Unfortunately, Persian cuisine is slightly neglected in the modern-day West. We want to change that.
Climate and type of terrain are heavily influential on any country's traditional cuisine and Iran is no different. This Middle-Eastern landmass does have it's large desert plateaus, don't get us wrong, however due to engineers living several millennia ago constructing underground irrigation systems, many of the Iranian plateaus are surprisingly fertile. They sprout a huge variety of fruit, vegetables and herbs, many of which can be found within our meals; pomegranates, beans, saffron, aubergine, wheat, lentils, walnuts, and many many more.
HYGIENE
Cleanliness and hygiene is also a very big part of Persian culture and we take it very, VERY seriously. That is why we have been awarded a Safe & Local Supplier Approval (SALSA), proof of our very high levels of hygiene standards. SALSA is only granted to kitchens who are able to demonstrate that they produce safe and legal food, so our customers can feel very safe and assured that they are eating food that has been cooked in a very clean environment.
WHY FROZEN?
We want to help reduce food waste.
This is something that is becoming increasingly important in today’s society. Food wastage in the UK in 2018 was around 9.5 million tonnes or £19 billion. This amount of food wastage would be associated with more than 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Frozen ready meals can help to reduce this waste. A frozen ready meal has a very long shelf life as it is preserved in a freezer, meaning that it is unlikely to be wasted because it hasn’t been used or sold.
HEALTH
Our food is frozen as soon as it is finished cooking, which helps all the flavours to be locked in. This means that there is no need for any preservatives and that the food maintains all its vitamins and nutrients. Because of this, in comparison to chilled ready meals, frozen meals contain far less saturated fats, salt and sugar.
QUALITY
We understand that not everyone is a chef! Luckily for you, we have our experienced, trained chefs making delicious Persian dishes for you, in the same way that they would be made in a traditional Persian home. Persian food is incredibly diverse due to the wide range of cultural inspirations and available native ingredients. It carries within it thousands of years of history as one of the world's oldest cuisine styles. So you can trust us to do it justice and show you Persian cuisine at its best.
QUICK & COST EFFECTIVE
Keeping frozen ready meals in your freezer means you always have home-cooked, nutritious meals at hand. What a relief! It also means no more portion control! No more thinking 'what's for dinner?'. Just reach into the freezer, hey, take a lucky dip if you please, and grab yourself a quick, nutritious meal. What’s more, you can keep our dishes for up to 6 whole months in the freezer.
ABOUT OUR PACKAGING
What’s the insulation in my box?
WOOL COOL
The furry stuff inside the box; don't worry, that's what's keep your meals frozen. Woolcool insulation is made using 100% pure sheep’s wool. The reason we use wool is because it's so darn good for the environment. It's sustainable, compostable, and due to Wool’s superior insulative properties, more effective than other solutions at keeping contents consistently colder for longer. That's not it though, probably the best thing about wool is that it's biodegradable meaning that at the end of it's life, the Wool can be returned to the soil, where it decomposes, releasing valuable nutrients into the ground. Even if ultimately our wool ends up in landfill, within 6-12 months, it will have broken down, never to be seen again. Not only is our wool reducing food waste by keeping food chilled in transit, it is also significantly reducing our packaging waste to landfill.
"Just in the last year alone, Woolcool prevented the equivalent of 75 Olympic sized swimming pools full of polystyrene from going to landfill."
OUR GEL PACKS
These are not just frozen gel packs, these are Shuro Shirin frozen gel packs. Our goal is to keep your meals as cold as we can for as long as we can but not only this, the gel packs we use are non-toxic and completely food safe. Our gel packs are 100% recyclable, food safe & non-toxic.
RECYCLING
Why not re-use them? Our gel packs are great for picnics or lunchboxes, but if you want to dispose of them, simply cut the corner of the pack and dispose of the contents through the normal domestic waste system. The contents are benign, given the dilution of the polymer and purification of the water, they are not at all harmful to the environment. The outer film is totally recyclable as LDPE 4.
IS YOUR PACKAGING RECYCLABLE?
Yes! Our cardboard sleeves are widely recyclable and can go straight into your paper recycling.
Our trays are made from an average of 85 per cent recycled PET post-consumer content and are widely recyclable - just make sure it's rinsed. As the trays are created from a natural mix of recycled PET, the colours will vary so don't worry if it looks a little different batch-to-batch. We are really proud not to use any black plastic for our trays. The film is also widely recyclable - just make sure it's clean.
ECO-CART x SHURO SHIRIN
As well as making sure that our packaging is recyclable, we have also partnered with ecocart.io so that when ordering, you have the option to pay a small amount to offset the carbon emmisions of our packaging being delivered to you. This money is then spent on funding world-changing sustainability projects on your behalf. I know, amazing right!
