Potato News from United Kingdom

The Scottish Government has said the seed potato industry is facing disaster through the Brexit deal. Exports of seed potatoes - a vital Scottish export - will not be part of a trade deal between the UK and EU

The GB potato industry accounts for over 117.46Kha of planted area this year, and is represented by 1,611 growers in 2020. Growers have faced difficult seasons of late.

The innovative features found in the latest version of Haith's class-leading root vegetable polisher are proving popular with growers and packers across the world.

NDC Technologies, a global leader in on-line and at-line process measurement and control solutions, introduces the next-generation Series 9 sensor suitable to measure

Two of the newest machines within Tong Engineering’s wide range of vegetable handling equipment are proving invaluable in transforming post-harvest operations for Hampshire-based potato grower, Whitewater Potatoes.

Pepsico UK has joined forces with British clean-tech firm CCm Technologies to reduce their carbon footprint by turning their potato waste into fertiliser.

A new marketing campaign to promote the benefits of the baked potato in the United Kindom by the AHDB will use in-depth consumer analysis to pick the right spud selling point for each segment of the market.

Lamb Weston, supported by Art of the Possible Agency and WAA, has won a 2020 B2B Marketing Award last week, taking Gold in the Best Product Launch Campaign and the highly coveted Grand Prix: Campaign of the Year for the launch of its innovative Dukes of Chippingdom in February.

The total harvest of British potatoes this year will be 5.3m tonnes according to provisional estimates – up two point eight per cent (2.8%) on last year’s figure but just below the five-year average of 5.4m tonnes.

UK potato packing business Branston has submitted plans for a new facility.

The European Union brought in $4 billion of tariffs earlier this month. The tariffs will affect a whole range of imported products, with grapefruit and sweet potatoes among them.

The continued wet weather in late October/early November in the United Kingdom has extended the harvesting season beyond eight weeks for some, which is clearly not good news where stores have been part-filled and cooling systems unable to function correctly.

Sowing wildflowers into potato crops could reduce aphid-carried viruses and offer an alternative to declining access to insecticides for growers.

After much discussion and planning by the CUPGRA Executive Committee, it has been decided, owing to COVID-19 restrictions, to go ahead with a virtual conference to continue the unbroken run of 30 successful CUPGRA Cambridge Potato Conferences.

Next World Potato Congress webinar will be held on December 15, 2020, when Mark Taylor of the James Hutton Institute will speak on 'Developing the Pipeline from Genomics to New Products'

Videogame technology will be used to help develop the perfect potato as part of a ground-breaking new project involving Abertay University and a major potato seed supplier.

In the United Kingdom, Lockdown 2.0 is happening and it brings widespread closure of pubs and restaurants once again. AHDB reflects on what it means for the potato industry

Chase Distillery has reached an agreement to be acquired by Diageo, accelerating its mission to champion field to bottle spirits made sustainably on our farm in Herefordshire.