April’s light sendings are well behind the Jersey Royal potato season and warm weather has brought the best out of the island, according to Iain Norris, horticultural consultant at States of Jersey’s economic development department.
Due to frosts at the beginning of the planting season at the start of the year, the availability of Jersey Royals was lower than usual in the UK and sendings took a knock, but now volumes are back on track.
Norris told freshinfo at the Real Food Festival: “This season we started to plant mid-December, when we usually start in January, and the early planted product was light on the ground, but now the yields are fine. Thankfully quality has always been excellent.”
Norris said that there has been a larger area of potatoes planted in Jersey for this season, but, because of dry weather, yields may be the same as last year. “The most important point is the quality,” he said. “We have seen an certain increase in plantings over the last two years, but it has still got to make the grade and we have got to make sure we continue to supply the quality customers demand.”
Produce export manager Neill McMullen added: “We put a lot of effort into monitoring our own standards and we are not complacent about it. We have the pole position, but the quality gap between us and other competitors who are not as good as us is getting smaller. We have to continue to concentrate on good quality.”
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