Ramona's Kitchen - A Sit Down With Ramona

In June 2025, we were delighted to be invited to Worsley to sit down with Ramona Hazan, Founder of one of the largest players in the houmous and chickpea market, RAMONA’s.

Marketing Manager Tim Wilkinson sat down with Ramona to discuss her journey through the world of food automation, her remarkable rise to the top, and her ongoing relationship with Turbo Systems, which began 20 years ago when she started her journey with us.

Ramona, thank you very much for allowing us to come down and talk to you. Take us back to the early days with your first steps into the world of food production.

I'm excited to see you guys. Thank you.

Well, it started 20 years ago now, and I decided to start the houmous business, but it was in my kitchen, so there was no major machinery there. It was just a little Magimix and a whole lot of bowls of chickpeas around my lounge, and my husband was a saint. There was tonnes and tonnes of packaging everywhere!

I was working in the day, producing at night and waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning to make houmous, then taking it to customers on the way to work. So, it sounds much more glamorous and romantic than it was, but it was crazy, and it's the sort of thing you do when you're in your 20s.

But my father had food manufacturing companies when I was growing up, so it's a story of a plumber's daughter who becomes a plumber. I think when I knew I wanted to start a business, I knew it was going to be in food, and it was always going to lead to a factory because I grew up going to my dad's factories. He had frozen pizzas, so there's loads of dough on big conveyor belts, but you knew machinery, you knew mass production, you didn't know how to do it, but you knew it was doable. So that's how I got into the world of chickpeas, I guess!

So, when did you feel the stage was right, then to increase the output like automation?

It was staged. It slowly went up. I went from my kitchen, which obviously could do very little, and then into a sort of small industrial unit. I call it my first factory, but that’s probably being a little bit polite. It was a unit that had more space than my kitchen, and we froze!

I remember standing on top of heaters trying to make falafels and houmous because it was just so cold in that unit. But there, I had the lavish long tables and two stand-up fridges, so it was ‘enormous’.

Then it moved from making falafels, one falafel at a time, with a little gadget that you pushed the side down and the floor drops, so you made one ball at a time. 100,000 balls later, we automated and got one that had like 16 holes. Then you pulled down, the lever went down. We went to a stainless-steel guy and said, "Can you see this? Can you make more of them?". But that was the problem; we could not afford to go straight from one at a time to the forming machine that gives you thousands, because it was too big and too expensive.

So, we had to do phases along the way. Even frying the falafel was hysterical because it was in a wok. You had two woks and then you had oil to fry the falafels, and then it became one of the little fryers, and then it became the big inline fryer. It goes up in phases.

I mean, the depositor was a joke because we used to fill by hand, and then suddenly this comes along, they deposit it for you, and you think, “Oh my God, it is heaven!”.

Touching on that, how did you first come across Turbo Systems, and what made you choose us for the first step into automation?

Turbo was always one of the big ones for me. Them and the blending. That progression was fantastic because you went from a Magimix to bigger and bigger, and you’ve suddenly got more houmous. But then of course, you had to pack more houmous into the pots, which was harder and you’re doing it by hand.

I don't remember how I got to you guys. I'm pretty sure it was a second-hand machine because I would never have been able to afford a new one! But I remember it was my first foray into, first of all, northerners. I'm South African and have only lived in London, so this was my first time meeting a whole new sort of personality of people, which was fantastic.

And when it was installed, the excitement around, oh my God, this thing just does it so fast! It does it for you and it saves you so much time. Everything about this is so amazing.

The only problem, of course, is that I was also the engineer! Some of your colleagues will remember many sad days on the phone with me, going “Oh, my God, I don't understand. Which one is it? The little blue cable? Are you sure? It's supposed to go in there, pull out the little yellow bit and then push it in. Can you hear the air?”.

I think I probably frustrated them. But there was no video calling at the time. And I think they were very, very patient. That's how relationships get built.

Ramona Hazan with several employees of Turbo Systems at Foodex Manufacturing Solutions in 2025.

So did it make a big difference to the operation? Was it quicker, more cost-effective?

It was all the above. Because now, you don't have an army of people filling. You have one machine and that is brilliant.

The reality is that it does make it more efficient. It makes it quicker, it makes it cheaper, it doesn't break down, it doesn't call in sick. All those things, when you are a one-man band, are the difference between producing and not producing.

So, did it allow you, on the operations side of it, to launch new products with the depositor?

Yes, we used it a lot because we had a bigger range. We've actually got a smaller range now that we're bigger, but we used to have a really big range. When you're growing a business, you'll make anything for anyone.

What that allowed us to do was literally just wash the hopper, the parts and then bring it back again. Now you're doing a different product. So, we could do all different types of products.

What I loved about the Turbo, I remember this being so brilliant, was that no matter what the consistency was, we managed it. We used to make a more watery tahini sauce, and you guys were quick to provide parts and solutions.

It was very, very versatile. That was one of the machines that we never changed. We changed the size of the hopper and the cylinder, but those things evolved. It was a staple when we were growing, it never ever changed. That machine was so stable and so reliable, it made our lives so easy.

So, in a way, did the depositor help you grow your company more? Or did it just make it more, like I said before, more versatile and more automated?

That was it; it was the automation. At the time we got it, we were never going to be able to automate everything that went around it. So, until we got the bigger machinery, we had a girl standing there putting a pot underneath the Turbo at a speed that you couldn't believe with the foot pedal. But it created automation that we could never have achieved with people. And it is a very reliable machine.

You’re an incredible example of how independent food producers can achieve incredible things with an idea and a dream. What advice would you offer someone in a similar position considering automation?

More than most, I appreciate the difficulty of a small business thinking about moving into machinery. It's not a big investment when you're big enough, but when you are smaller, it's an enormous investment. It makes you lose sleep at night.

But my advice? Do it as soon as you can do so, because it's penny-wise, pound-foolish. That money you save is actual.

The reality is that when those machines are in and you develop the right relationships with the people that are behind the scenes, you’re going to need them. Whatever it is, you need that support, and you don't always have engineers on site, so you need to develop those relationships and say:

“Guys, give me something basic, that's not going to break down.” And that's what I love about the Turbo staff.

So, I would always say move into it, do it when you can, because it catapults the business. You then have more time to do things. It's really, reliable. Also, because you know what it does and how many it does in a minute, it's easy to cost. Whereas with people, you do it once, you count it, you cost it accordingly, but the next time they do it, they do it faster or slower, and you haven't got that visibility, so you don't really know the cost. And that’s the difference between survival and non-survival.

I totally agree. And also, things like wastage as well.

Yes, 100%. It's key. These are the little things that you just don't count when you're a small business, because they're not obvious, but they are death by a thousand cuts. You don't know they're hitting you. But they are.

I remember we were making the same tahini dressing, and I remember watching a woman in the factory filling the pots. They were one kilo, and she had a jug and a big vat of it. So, she pours it in and then she goes back and puts a little bit more and then a little more.

But you can't count that in terms of costing, and you don't see how much money that costs you. So, you think you're spending a lot of money on a machine, but you're not. The difference is night and day. You press the pump twice and you've got a kilo every time, and then that's your costing, so it does make a big difference.

Fantastic. What's the ambition now for RAMONA’s? That's a big question to ask.

Well, we've now moved into dips, so before, we were all houmous and falafel, but now we're moving into dips, so now it's all guns blazing.

We're going to be looking at some beautiful cheese-based dips, some different pulses and things that you can use in different ways and different eating occasions.

I think the brand is trusted, so when we come out with new things, people know we're going to make sure it tastes amazing, that it's moreish, that it's easy to eat and that it's great for sharing.

And made with love! Always made with love. And it is, it genuinely is.

It's fantastic. So, looking back on the experience with Turbo Systems, would you be happy to recommend Turbo Systems machinery or depositors to other companies?

It's more than that. I recommend the people behind it. And therefore, I absolutely have no problem with the machinery.

Because anyone can sell you a machine. What you need are the people who know the machinery well, who can help you over the phone, and who can react quickly.

That's the part you need, and that's what I recommend. The machines are fantastic with the people behind them. This is a 20-year-long relationship that I’ve had with them, that I've been using them, and I haven't stopped using them.

Well, Ramona, thanks very much for your time today and we wish you all the success in your business and I'll pass your regards on to the rest of the team.

Yes, I'm sure they’ll remember me asking for girly versions of everything.

“Don't talk to me in boy, talk to me in girl. I don't understand what you're saying, just say colours!".