News on Research from Europe

New branding and a proposed new way of working for the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) was formally launched at the Cereals event in Lincolnshire earlier this month.

Researchers in the United Kingdom aim for a new commercial potato that resists many of the worst vulnerabilities of potato crops around the world.

AHDB Potatoes launched its first ever ‘Next Generation’ programme, a series of 9 business and technical days that - for a selected few - will provide exposure to the whole supply chain.

In the latest Consumer Category Report of the Potato Council, one of the topics addressed is the online sales of fresh potatoes - including actual growth, comparison to competitive products and grocery in general as well as future opportunities

A team of researchers tracking the 2014 population of the potato late blight pathogen have added to the 2013 data to extend the spatial diversity plots and combine this with novel genetic analysis tools that visualise the distribution and diversity of dominant clones and reveals novel genetically diverse isolates in some regions.

A small field on an island off the Netherlands' northern coast promises one answer to the problem of how to feed the world's ever-growing population: potatoes and other crops that grow in saltwater.

Each year, large quantities of ware and seed are exported from the United Kingdom to the Canary Islands. Potato Council’s head of seed and export, Rob Burns, updates on the current difficulties affecting this long established trade agreement.

Researchers from Ghent University and the International Potato Center have discovered that sweet potatoes naturally contain genes from a bacterium. Because of the presence of this 'foreign' DNA, sweet potato can be seen as a 'natural gmo'.

In this week 'Nature Plants', scientists from Wageningen University and The Sainsbury Laboratory report the identification of a resistance gene that enhances resistance against potato late blight from a South American wild relative of cultivated potatoes.

At the Anuga FoodTec trade fair from 24 to 27 March in Cologne, Insort presents the latest innovation in process monitoring for food production with its 'Sherlock food analyser'.

Late last week, the Potato Council published its annual GB Potatoes Market Intelligence report, wrapping up all key information about the GB potato market in order to inform decision-making and provide answers for common questions about the industry.

Pizzoli S.p.A., Italy's largest operator in the potato sector and Bio-on S.p.A., the leader in eco-sustainable chemical technologies, will collaborate to build Italy's first PHAs bioplastic production plant using waste product from the potato agro-industrial process.

TOMRA Sorting Food will reveal the latest addition to its steam peeling portfolio at Anuga FoodTec, later this month. The Odyssey steam peeler is the ideal cost-effective steam peeling solution for seasonal processing companies and emerging markets.

Colorado potato beetles are a dreaded pest of potatoes all over the world. Now, scientists from the Max Planck Institutes of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam-Golm and Chemical Ecology in Jena have shown that potato plants can be protected from herbivory using RNA interference (RNAi).

A visit to TOMRA Sorting’s booth at Anuga FoodTec could pay dividends for food processors looking to drive up efficiency and production on their lines.

Building on the growing success of its collaboration over the past two years, Potato Council and Horticultural Development Company (HDC) brought the largest collaborative UK stand yet to this year’s Fruit Logistica event in Berlin.

Insort GmbH is one of the winners of the International FoodTec Awards in the category GOLD. Insort received the award for its Sherlock Food Analyser (Sherlock Analyst).

Fruit Logistica 2015 attracted a record number of 65.000 trade visitors, up from 62.000 in 2014.