A TEESSIDE company is gearing up for Chinese New Year by making two million spring rolls on behalf of some of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains.

The chances are that if customers buy chicken, duck or vegetable spring rolls from their local supermarket in the coming weeks, they will have been made by SK Chilled Foods.

This is one of the busiest times of the year for the Middlesbrough-based company, which is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of chilled and frozen snack foods.

From their development kitchen in Wynyard, near Stockton the company’s four chefs have been honing and perfecting the recipe for their spring rolls in time for the Chinese New Year – the Year of the Sheep – which officially starts on Thursday, February 19.

With the largest spring roll they make measuring 14cm, the two million they will make for the Chinese New Year alone would be enough to stretch from Middlesbrough to Birmingham. In an entire year the company will make about 58 million spring rolls, enough to stretch from Middlesbrough to Beijing.

Jeremy Faulkner, managing director of SK Foods, said: “Spring rolls get their name because they are traditionally eaten during the Spring Festival. They are a Cantonese dim sum dish of cylindrical-shaped rolls filled with vegetables, meat, or sometimes something sweet."

Chinese New Year is the longest and most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. Traditionally, celebrations last 15 days with families preparing by cooking food, buying gifts and preparing their houses well in advance.