Horticulture Week Potato Grower of the Year: Corkers Crisps

The proverb "two heads are better than one" has certainly proved to be true for best friends and owners of Corkers Crisps, Rod Garnham and Ross Taylor. Four years ago, the duo emptied their piggy banks and used every bit of cash they had to set up the firm.

The company is unique in that it only produces crisps made from potatoes grown on the home farm. The gourmet range — which markets itself on being a quintessentially British product and uses imagery such as teapots, the Union Jack and red telephone boxes on its marketing material — has quickly grown into a successful, multmillion-pound business.

Its range of flavours includes some British favourites, such as "Red Leicester & Caramelised Onion" as well as "Pork Sausage & English Mustard", and the packets feature the slogan: "Natural British Crunch."

Ross says: "With the knowledge that my family passed on down through the generations since the 1800s, I knew that the Naturalo potato that we grow had the best frying qualities, helping Rod and I to create the ‘Natural British Crunch’."

The firm washes, grades and hand cooks its potatoes on the family’s fifth-generation 200ha farm in Ely, Cambridgeshire. The pair says that its potato crisps are particularly flavoursome because of the farm’s rich, peaty and fertile soil.

"The 4,000-year-old cured bog oak has given our crop the superior flavour and taste that can only be found in the small 10-mile radius of Ely, Cambridgeshire," they say.

The success of the business has recently helped Rod and Ross to expand their product range to include vegetable crisp products, which are made out of carrots, parsnips and beetroots that are already grown at Willow Farm.

Other finalists were Agrico UK and Ibbotsons Produce