Potatoes have been the talk of the town this week as the UK’s first purple variety went into Sainsbury’s stores.
Supplied by Albert Bartlett, Purple Majesty is said to be rich in the anthocyanins normally associated with colourful produce such as berries and aubergines.
“This spud is a real super hero and set to be a firm dinner table favourite,” said Albert Bartlett’s head of development Gillian Kynoch.
Sainsbury’s vegetable buyer Julien Roberts told freshinfo: “The Purple Majesty has been under development with Albert Bartlett in the UK for approximately five years. Albert Bartlett currently supply Sainsbury’s with a number of different potato varieties. They came to us with this exciting new potato a number of months ago and we jumped at the chance to stock it. We are always looking for new ways to make meal times more exciting for our customers…
“In a nutshell, the results [of consumer research] indicated that the new potato appealed mostly to the under 50s who felt it was interesting and on-trend. They felt that it was a new type of potato entirely, in the same way that white potatoes are different to sweet potatoes. Importantly, they felt that the colour communicated the potato’s health credentials.”
The launch will be supported by six-sheet posters around key Sainsbury’s stores.
Some 400 tonnes have been harvested this year - enough to stock approximately 100 stores in London, the south east and Scotland. Next year we are planning a much larger crop and intend to roll out Purple Majesty nationwide.
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