Greenvale in early at Sainsbury's

Greenvale AP has delivered the first of this season’s home-grown new potatoes to Sainsbury’s stores as part of the Local First for Fresh campaign for 2006.

The campaign allows local growers to make daily deliveries of fresh new potatoes directly to the store straight from the field. This initiative will be rolled out to further selected stores in the coming weeks.

Grown in fields overlooking Mount’s Bay in Gulval, Penzance by Gavin Rodda and Geoff Reynolds, who farm as the 2R’s partnership, Sainsbury’s first new potatoes of the UK season went on shelf in its Truro store and arrived before loose new Jersey grown potatoes - the usual front-runner.

Rodda said: “These potatoes were planted at the beginning of the year, grown on south facing slopes with high quality seed. I am confident that this crop has an exceptional skin finish and eating quality to match.”

John Maylam, senior produce buyer at Sainsbury’s, said: “This is excellent news for all Sainsbury’s customers and another first for Sainsbury’s. These potatoes have a wonderful taste and to arrive so early in the season is an additional bonus for the UK consumer looking to buy good quality UK produce.”