Potatoes play an important role in France’s wide portfolio of fruit and vegetables and Breton produce in particular is welcomed onto the UK market - offering consistent quality in a range of produce.
Prince de Bretagne’s potato offer is centered on new potatoes.
This year, in addition to the Primaline potato, which is grown under cover, Prince de Bretagne now offers its customers open-field new potatoes, harvested by hand and then carefully sized. Blondeline potatoes are new for 2004 - with new production methods bringing an early crop offering taste and quality presentation.
“In France as a whole, total new potato production is around 200,000t, while potato production is around 4mt,” says Pierre Gélébart, Prince de Bretagne’s product manager for new potatoes. “This season we are expecting 28,000t of new potatoes for the fresh market and 9,000t for processing. There are also around 400t of organic new potatoes in Brittany - a slight increase on last year.”
The growing season was rather good - cold but without frost until the end of April,” Gélébart continues. “Since then there has been no rain in Brittany and the fields are now really dry. This will result in yields being rather low in some parts of south west Brittany.”
Lack of water has taken its toll on production. “For fresh products it is a problem, but for processing crops most of the producers can irrigate so there are less problems,” he says.
Overall, the quality of potatoes has been good this year. “The dry matter is good and all the crops are ‘burned’ so the conservation and presentation in the shops and supermarket is good,” says Gélébart.
Prince de Bretagne continues to develop its pre and post harvesting techniques. “We are partner of the french new potatoes organisation which works on new packaging to improve the conservation of the crop between harvest and customer. These are sold under the name Blonde de terre.
“In Brittany we have also been trying out a new method of production under black plastic which is put directly on to the field. This enables us to bring production forward and also gives us better quality in terms of form and colour.”
Brittany has justifiably earned the reputation as one of the most successful exporting regions in the north west of France and Prince de Bretagne continues to work with a number of varieties. “In Brittany the first variety is now Starlette, the second Ostara, then Europa; Charlotte,” says Gélébart. “Under the label Prince de Bretagne, we don’t have other quality indentification but all the producers respect the rules of Prince de Bretagne.
“In terms of this year’s marketing efforts we will be taking promotional material directly into supermarkets and there will also be advertising on TV and across a wide selection of magazines.”
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