Conventional Produce

Potatoes

Potatoes are James Foskett Farms most important crop and around 600 acres of ware are grown every year. The whole crop is marketed through GreenvaleAP with 60% going through their packhouses mostly at Floods Ferry in Cambridgeshire but also Duns in the Scottish Borders and Ternhill in Shropshire, they are all prepacked for Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s. The remaining 40 % are sent to other prepack customers who supply a variety of supermarkets and catering outlets.

To produce top quality packing potatoes the Farm has invested heavily in modern planting, harvesting and grading machinery as well as making use of up to date technology on such things as irrigation monitoring and RTK precision steering on tractors to give more accuracy with applications. We also employ an independent potato specialist to supply advice and agronomy.

Potatoes are all harvested direct into boxes and sent direct to the customer or graded into different size bands, chilled and dispatched next day.

Varieties include Maris Peer, Vales Emerald, Charlotte and Carlingford which are all grown as salads or scrapers. Marfona which are grown for early bakers. Maris Piper and King Edwards which are for early pre packing and Mayan Gold which are used for the specialist or finest range.

The kind climate and sandy soils in East Suffolk enable us to grow early crops of potatoes which are generally sold straight off the field in summer. Very few crops are stored because we struggle to achieve good skin finish. Upto 150 acres of crops are fleeced every year to promote earliness and protect the plants from late frosts.

Onions

James Foskett Farms are members of G’s Growers and market all their onions through the pack house at Ramsey in Cambrigeshire for Tesco’s and Marks and Spencer .

The whole crop is drilled in late February and March with 70% brown and 30% red varieties, then carefully managed during the growing season to hopefully produce a firm 60 to 80 mm onion to harvest in late August and September.

Harvest rates depend on dry weather so windrowed crops have time to dry in the sun before being picked up and graded into our 3.5 ton boxes and placed into the stores for drying and cold storage.

James Foskett Farms have control of 5750 tons of modern cold box storage and conditioning facilities which are suitable for holding crop dormant until May and early June the following year.

Onions are a very challenging crop to grow and rely on favorable weather conditions to achieve good quality onions. Supply and demand is also very dependent on world markets.

Sugar Beet

This is a relatively new crop to James Foskett Farms who have just taken a 2000 ton contract with British Sugars factory at Bury St Edmunds. High yielding varieties are grown to produce quality beet with minimal impurities to insure maximum sugar yield.

Wheat

Poor malting barley prices have meant wheat has become the only cereal grown at James Foskett Farms in recent years. High yielding feed varieties that require low inputs and are relatively drought resistant are grown on our light land. The crop all goes for animal feed and is marketed in a harvest pool by Atlas Fram which insures quick movement at harvest.

Vining Peas

James Fosket Farms are members of Anglian Pea Growers Ltd who are pleased to announce they have negotiated a new vining pea contract for 2011 with Ardo who are one of the largest freezing companies in Europe. They process over 500,000 tons of fruit, vegetables, pasta and rice per year and it's marketed all over the world.

Peas are programme drilled into good seedbeds during March and April so the group achieves a six week vining period starting at the end of june and lasting into the beginning of August. Frestly harvested vining peas leave the harvest field every 30 minutes for the factory so they can be processed and frozen quickly to retain their wonderful fresh flavour.

Brassica’s

The Farm generally grows between 25 and 50 acres of winter Cauliflower which is planted in July after early potatoes or vining peas. The crop is hand cut on to field rigs from November to the end of March and sold to Marshalls for distribution to most of the UK multiples. The harsh weather of the 2009/10 winter was a disaster for most of the uk cauliflower crop with many fields being written off with frost damage, we hope for better things this year !

• Seed Potatoes
• Ware Potatoes
• Organic Produce
• Conventional Produce

Latest Pictures

More from the gallery...