Potatoes

[Hopkirk]

If I buy potatoes at Tescbury's today, when were they harvested?

Do they dig them up all year round, or are they stored somewhere and released onto the market when needed?

[sandyRoe]

I think the main crop would be lifted in early Autumn and stored. But potatoes would also be imported from places like Egypt, Israel, and Cyprus.

[grasscarp]

Potatoes have their own council and website.
http://potato.org.uk/industry/supply-chain

[hc4361]

Remember the days when we couldn't have roast or jacket potatoes in the summer because only little new potatoes were available?
Chip shops had to import potatoes from Cyprus to make chips and they didn't taste the same.
No little new potatoes available in autumn and winter, either.

Now we can get British baking potatoes all year round; same with 'new' potatoes and big 'old' potatoes for roasting, chipping and mashing.

I have no idea what they do with them, so I googled and found this:
http://www.potato.org.uk/crop-storage

[hc4361]

'New' potatoes stored for 7 months.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/7-month-old-new-potatoes-sold-in-supermarkets-1-3042225

[Hopkirk]

Thanks all.

There was a recent ptogramme with Greg Wallace, and in that they looked at apples.

They were being stored in ideal conditions, including air with very low levels of oxygen. I guess the same methods are used with potatoes.

What made me wonder though is that I sometimes see a potato lorry in the local area and I wondered if some were still being dug up now.