They’d do well to search Jersey’s potato fields for shards of broken mirror, because something’s got to explain the run of bad luck the island’s producers are having.
Margins eroded by endless promotions, drought devastating the crop and now nearly a million pounds’ worth of Jersey Royals decimated by a freak fire on a ferry. Producers must be asking themselves what the point is of growing what was supposed to be a premium, high margin product.
There’s not much anyone can do about drought, fire or any other act of God. As Tom Binet of the Jersey Royal Company rather sardonically points out, the locusts will be coming next.
But one thing that would help everyone is if supermarkets scaled back the absurd level of promotions that have left Jersey Royals sold for less than value potatoes at times. Last season one retail buyer told me all the supermarkets were “rushing around like busy fools and not making any money” on the crops as they were discounting them to death.
There’s no doubt it’s helpful to run promotions to get consumers enthused at the start of the season, but when a premium crop starts being sold at a commodity price it questions the validity of growing it at all.
One of the themes of the recession was the devaluation of fresh food categories through higher-end volume being sold in cheaper tiers, but it’s something from which only the consumer gets a short-term benefit.
If we want to maintain the wide variety in the fruit and veg aisle, producers need to know it’s going to be worth their while sticking with it.
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