Ware 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 Turnhill 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, Vales Sovereign 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.
