News on The Potato Supply Chain from United Kingdom

NFU Scotland is urging its potato growers to complete its survey to identify what functions carried out by the industry’s statutory levy body – AHDB Potatoes - are most valued ahead of body being wound down.

Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots has announced more information on the £2 million financial support package for potato growers.

As part of today’s release of McCain’s 2020 Global Sustainability report Together, Towards Planet-Friendly Food, the company is pledging that it will be implementing regenerative agricultural practices across 100 per cent of its potato acreage by 2030.

Puffin Produce, a potato supplier in the United Kingdom, has reduced its water use to wash and polish its potatoes by 90% and electricity use by 40% as a result of a major equipment update provided by Haith.

In a first for Soil Scout in the United Kingdom, Soil Scout are delighted to announce that Meijer Potato have recently installed their sensors in various key locations around the country.

British carbon capture and utilization company CCm Technologies has been awarded funding from Innovate UK to develop new modular Carbon Capture and Sequestration units.

Crop4Sight’s online and mobile digital toolkit is designed to help growers maximise saleable potato yields and was launched as a commercial service in 2020. Crop4Sight now adds a potato irrigation scheduling tool.

This season AHDB (United Kingdom) is receiving a lot of reports of high levels of softening, dehydration and compression damage from potato store managers.

A Lincolnshire farmer believes many in the industry are ignoring valuable research into how best to protect crops from extreme weather conditions and are losing millions of pounds as a result.

AHDB has announced it is winding down significant activities on behalf of the horticulture and potatoes sectors. While awaiting a decision on the future by Ministers in England, Scotland and Wales, AHDB wants to reassure levy payers their views have been heard.

NDC Technologies, a leading global provider of precision measurement and control solutions, proudly offers the Series 9 online food gauge and InfraLab e-Series at-line analyzer to companies looking for accurate and reliable control of key constituents in the manufacturing process.

Scotts Precision Manufacturing has extended its distribution network with the appointment of a new sales and service agent to cover Scotland.

Work has started on a new GBP 6m facility, which will be used to extract high-grade plant protein from potatoes, at Branston's site in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. Branston is working alongside B-hive Innovations as part of a collaborative project to improve potato crop utilization.

Plant scientists at the James Hutton Institute are studying the evolution of late blight in potato by working with industry and research partners to track the distribution and diversity of dominant clones in Europe in 2020

The British potato industry remains in a state of great uncertainty and at significant risk of crop wastage and economic failure as a result of minimal progress on the availability of suitable sprout suppression chemistry.

HMRC has now released trade data covering up to the end of February 2021. In January, after the end of the transition period to leave the European Union (EU), we saw some teething issues in exports. Did these continue into February?

While an official opening might not be possible, the team at GRIMME UK’s new £3m depot have still found a way to celebrate - supplying the 2000th GRIMME de-stoner to one of the country’s leading vegetable growers.

Tim, currently Chief Operating Officer of the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), will take up his position at the Stoneleigh-based levy board on 31 August 2021, replacing Jane King. During the intervening period, the interim AHDB CEO will be Ken Boyns, AHDB Chief Finance, and Operations Officer.