Planting of early potatoes this season has been a real off-and-on affair. With wetter weather in Scotland, northern and western England than in the eastern counties, plantings followed a stop-start pattern from December through to February. And this week lifting has been similarly affected following rainfall at the weekend making lifting difficult.
The season started for Branston - category manager for Tesco - early this month following plantings in January in Cornwall.
“Cornish planting began more or less on time and made good progress until February,” says Branston’s field director David Nelson. “We had all our first early crops in and the weather conditions were quite reasonable - mild and dry - until the cold snap started around February 20. Shoots from the first planted crops were just starting to emerge from under polythene when the frosts came and temperatures fell as low as -4°C. It burnt the shoots back to below ground level and slowed development. Further overnight frosts hit covered crops over the next three weeks.”
Conditions began improving around the middle of March and early planted crops then made good progress with later planted crops, unaffected by frost damage, not far behind. Polythene was left on the crops in Cornwall until about the second week of April. “There was the occasional plant affected by blight as the polythene was taken off, but in general the crops recovered well and were fairly strong,” says Nelson.
The bulking rate was subsequently steady because of cool, and often dull, weather leading to the start of the harvest slipping by about five days. “Early liftings were variable in size due to frost having an impact on stem numbers,” says Nelson. “Frosted stems gave more, but smaller tubers and increased size variation. This should not be an issue later in the season, and otherwise the quality is very good.”
Pembrokeshire has also come on stream now - despite planting starting some three weeks behind Cornish growers in the Welsh county, it was only a week behind to start harvesting. The delay in planting meant they did not fall victim to frost damage, but the unseasonably cool weather has slowed early crop development.
“We are seeing a concertina effect this year with different sources having availability at the same time,” explains Rob Burrow, market information manager at the British Potato Council (BPC). “What appeared to be a glut of Cornish produce on the market earlier this month was really a result of the cold weather across Europe and the Mediterranean basin putting Majorca, Cyprus and Italy behind and so all sources have been clashing on the marketplace. This is part of the reason why prices have come down so rapidly, although they have been a bit steadier this past week.”
The market is undoubtedly difficult for early growers this year with stores of 2004’s maincrop hanging over and difficult lifting conditions to add to their woes. But it is those producers, aligned to dedicated packers and with a definite market for their product right from planting, that are in the best position. The BPC urges growers not to engage in speculative plantings and in Cornwall and south-west England supply chain partnerships are strong.
Part of the reason is the growing trend in the UK towards regional sourcing. Local supplies and local sourcing are fundamentally important to Tesco and its customers and, therefore, for suppliers too.
“Our supplies from Kent are starting in late May while Suffolk is about two weeks later. Both areas will fall into regional marketing initiatives with other sources in Lincolnshire coming on stream shortly after,” explains Nelson.
Suppliers Greenvale AP and QV Foods are now into their second year of the Local First for Fresh initiative with Sainsbury’s which sees growers deliver directly to their local store.
“The whole initiative is being extended this year and will cover 29 stores in Cornwall, Carmarthenshire, Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Devon and Somerset,” says Craig Sankey, marketing manager at Greenvale AP, which is covering 22 stores while fellow Sainsbury’s supplier QV Foods is covering seven.
“What we’re doing is working very closely with Sainsbury’s and trying to get prominent placement in store,” says Sankey. The project is supported by Heart of England Fine Foods in the Midlands counties featuring in-store tastings, and this year Taste of Anglia and North West Fine Foods are supporting the initiative in their regions.
The initiative has brought store managers and produce managers into direct contact with growers to the benefit of all parties. “We’ve had really positive feedback,” says Sankey, “with people making trips to Sainsbury’s deliberately to buy local potatoes having read about the initiative in their local papers.”
Individual stores decide how and where to display the product in their aisles, and the benefit to Sainbury’s as a point of difference is clear.
“Sainsbury’s was the first major retailer to run a scheme of this nature across the UK,” says John Maylam senior buyer, produce at Sainsbury’s. “Providing the best quality of produce has always been a priority for Sainsbury’s and to be able to do this by using locally grown potatoes is an added benefit to our customers. We are proud to support the British farmer by bringing locally grown produce into our stores.”
Also building on the local theme this year is Cornwall Taste of the West with its cheeky, high-profile campaign - Deliciously Dirty - featuring the strap line “Rub me don’t scrub me”.
The new promotion, updated this season to highlight Cornish earlies, is proving a winner with retailers and the food-service sector alike. Deliciously Dirty focuses on the un-washed nature of Cornish new potatoes to distinguish them from clean, pre-packed, baby potatoes.
The new logo launched this year has been easily visible in Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Somerfield in Cornwall and further afield, as well as at independents, farm shops, wholesalers and on restaurant menus.
“It is a national campaign and will run as long as supplies do - into June - but we have also had a definite focus on Cornwall and getting people in the county to look out for the crop and ask for the potatoes by name,” says Angie Coombs of Cornwall Taste of the West.
The campaign was launched on April 28 as the first tubers were lifted in the county and is benefiting not just from increased multiple participation, but also from interest generated by a new website.
“Consumers can log on to the site and find out where in the county they can buy Deliciously Dirty new potatoes, but there is also a section for the trade,” explains Coombs. “We have had a really good response to this feature whereby restaurateurs or wholesalers can call a mobile number and our man with a van will deliver Cornish new potatoes directly to them. There really has been a huge increase in local food interest in Cornwall.”
The Cornish Early campaign is led by just 18 growers in the county on a very limited budget and supported by Cornwall Taste of the West and the Penwith District Council.
Airdrie-based Albert Bartlett is increasing its production of early new potatoes for marketing under regional banners. “This year we have increased our acreage of Ayrshire, Suffolk and Cornish Royals which are International Kidney grown in UK regions,” says Bartlett’s John Hicks. “This is a Bartlett-branded product using packaging of a similar theme to our award-winning Rooster packs but with specific recipes to the variety designed by twice Michelin-starred chef Andrew Fairlie. This will be the second year Royals have been available in retailers. Feedback last year was very good across all the areas, particularly in Scotland.”
New potatoes with their regional emphasis are also helping the potato category generally bounce back, says Hicks.
“The fresh potato category did suffer from the Atkins and other low-carb diets and, on-going, we have to compete with convenience-based ready meals and pasta and rice,” he says. “However as health and diet once again receives an increased profile, we are re-educating the consumer in the benefits of the potato. New potatoes are certainly the most convenient and healthy of all because generally they are cooked - usually boiled - and eaten in their whole state. This allows the potato to retain all its nutritional benefits, which can be lost during other cooking methods. The consumer desire for convenience and healthy products is certainly contributing to the increase in sales of smaller pack sizes containing smaller tubers.”
At the forefront of these developments and benefiting from them is packaging machinery specialist Gainsborough Industrial Controls (GIC). The Lincolnshire-based designer and manufacturer of vertical form, fill and seal (VFFS) machinery has installed some 80 VFFS packaging lines. “The change has been away from neck-tie bags to the extent that now nearly all packs are VFFS,” says applications manager at GIC, Andy Beal. “It gives packhouses higher speeds and increased flexibility and means they can achieve much higher rates of throughput, for example up to 80 packs a minute on a 1kg bag of new potatoes from a single line.”
The latest design from GIC offers continuous-motion machinery with high-capacity, multi-head weighers. “The benefits of the change to VFFS in the potato industry have been numerous and include higher throughputs, increased flexibility such as various pack styles from a single machine offering modified atmosphere packaging, improved pack presentation, and integrated best-before-date coding.”
While packers are driving the costs out of supply with investment in such high-speed systems, they are also adding value where possible. “The fresh potato market has had to be innovative to maintain market share,” says Burrow. “We are seeing an increase in washed earlies which is helping to maintain that share, for example early Maris Peer and Lady Crystal have started lifting now and have a firmed skin that can be washed in response to a section of the market’s demand.
“Convenience and ease of preparation is a trend across all the potato sector, it is the way the market is going and first earlies are no exception and are responding to that.”
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