Variety Development

Our varieties are key to the development of our business through our Fresh, Prepared and Mashed potato facilities.

We take a systematic approach to the selection of new varieties, with an extensive testing programme to ensure that we supply the ones that perform best for different end usage requirements as well as working well for growers.

New variety development is a long process, taking around four years for varieties to go through our programme. It starts with a brief, based on desired attributes which is shared with breeders across the UK and beyond. We’re searching for better tasting, quicker cooking potatoes with consistency and reliability from field to fork, so we work closely with selected breeding houses focused on delivering varieties to meet our future needs. 

Our trials programme consists annually of over 100 varieties, samples of which are hand planted into sites across the UK, which we assess weekly, looking for crop growth habits, disease resistance, stress tolerance and marketable yield. Once harvested, we assess them for quality and eating characteristics using our specially trained tasting panel. Successful varieties then move forward to our approved list, meaning they can be used across all our business units.

We also have our own breeding programme crossing breeding lines to produce clones suited to our business and customer needs. The variety Inca Rosa was the first successful clone to come out of this programme. We currently we have a high yielding salad clone going through National Listing, which we expect to be commercialised in a few years. Other aspects of the programme are focussing on producing high yielding clones with enhanced pest and disease resistance.