Potato News from United Kingdom

The UK potato sector has been going through a better spell this year, but it did take a long time for the potato shortage to feed back to growers as there was still crop from the previous year on the market and the prices didn’t increase until around mid-May.

A major capital investment is now paying big dividends at a leading East Anglian veg packer. With multiple lines and manually driven packing and palletising, a decision was made to increase bagging rates, increase flexibility and remove all manual handling.

Agristo is now a good 2 years into the finalization of Brexit. The French Fry company can look back up to this day and safely say Agristo has done everything to uphold one of its core values, which is to service and unburden their clients in any way possible.

OF&G (Organic Farmers & Growers) has welcomed Defra’s development of the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2023 (SFI) and the flexibility the expanded remit offers to organic farmers.

Bredel hose pumps are contributing to a sustainable solution for steam potato peeling provided by TOMRA Food which reduces water usage, water treatment and food waste.

European Space Agency (ESA) has been supporting research in frying cooking methods in microgravity to fill in knowledge gaps on Earth and in space. Frying potatoes in space seems to be possible!

Extreme weather incidents are serving to rock Europe’s potato industry to its very foundations. Last year was actually the second warmest year on record in Europe. The drought conditions resulted in a dramatic downturn in overall potato output.

CNH Industrial and ONE SMART SPRAY, a joint venture between Bosch and BASF, have signed a collaboration agreement to integrate the latter’s advanced spraying system within CNH Industrial’s agricultural brand product portfolios.

McCain Foods, world’s largest manufacturer of frozen potato products and a global leader in prepared appetisers and snacks, has partnered with Say It Now to launch their first Actionable Audio Ad campaign in Q2 of 2023.

Extreme weather events pose a significant challenge to potato cultivation. Heat and drought stress reduces productivity, causes physiological defects in tubers, and damages crops.

A new predictive method has shown a way to better select parents for new potato varieties, offering a blueprint for better potatoes and a way to speed up the production of higher yield varieties.

tna solutions has partnered with a premium snack manufacturer, Burts Snacks Ltd, to increase production capacity at its Plymouth, UK, manufacturing site.

HZPC UK, a member of the Royal HZPC Group, a leader in potato varieties and seed production for the entire potato industry in the UK, announced the acquisition of TLC Potatoes, one of Scotland's leading minituber producers.

Defra and UKRI, as part of the Farming Innovation Programme, recently announced funding for 'Potato-LITE' – a multimillion pound project over four years

From melting glaciers and flooding to drought, rising global temperature is affecting agriculture in many ways. Potato production is also taking a hit.

Ground-Sensing technology TuberScan - developed by Agri-tech business B-hive Innovations and partners - is entering its final phase of testing both overseas and now in the UK following the start of this year’s weather-delayed potato growing season.

Following the success of last year’s demonstration programme, GRIMME UK is once again giving people a chance to see the GL 420 Exacta potato planter in operation.

In light of the new rules in the United Kingdom on the use of inhibited urea, announced on 22 March, farmers are being encouraged to check levels of efficiency when purchasing urea, to maximise their investment when complying to new regulations.