During more than 30 years in the business, Greenvale has matured into a leading supplier of potatoes, handling 800,000 tonnes of potatoes a year, valued at over £120 million.
The company serves the retail, processing, wholesale, catering and food service sector, as well as specialist caterers to fish and chip outlets. Although perhaps best-known for its comprehensive offer of fresh potatoes, Greenvale's list of core products extends much further, covering seed potatoes and dehydrated potato flake.
Greenvale's main business is supplying potatoes in both loose, pre-packs and punnets to Tesco and Sainsbury's. The company has worked closely with its customers to promote potato consumption, healthy eating and seasonal locally-grown produce, in schools and at agricultural shows.
Greenvale has developed import and export relationships with a number of sources in the Mediterranean basin and Europe to provide its customers with year-round availability. Meanwhile, it prides itself on having a countrywide reach, with modern, customer-focused potato packing plants in Berwickshire, Cambridgeshire, Shropshire and Cornwall. In addition the company has grower sales marketing offices in Norfolk, Suffolk, Devon, Lincolnshire, Shropshire and Yorkshire. It works closely with growers co-operative AP Growers as part of its integrated approach to supply, and has more than 700 employees.
Greenvale is the UK's largest handler of organic potatoes and two promising organic varieties, Lady Balfour and Eve Balfour, both of which originate from the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI ñ see also feature, page 20), number among the company's new additions. Vales Sovereign and a number of other varieties are also in the process of being finalised for full commercial release.
Greenvale's marketing manager Jayne Davies says: “Lady Balfour was selected from SCRI's core breeding program for its multi-trait disease resistance, which was achieved through conventional breeding. National listed in 2001, this variety is very high yielding with good foliage and excellent tuber blight resistance. It has the highest partial resistance to the potato cyst nematode, G.pallida, of any commercial variety currently on the market.” Lady Balfour can also boast a good level of resistance to virus Y, spraing, blackleg and common scab. Vigour is exceptional under the lower fertility conditions found in organic regimes.
“Independent trials have shown Lady Balfour to be consistently one of the highest yielding organic varieties,” says Davies. “Dormancy is extremely long, allowing long-term storage without the use of sprout suppressants making the variety ideal for commercial organic production and the amateur gardener.”
Eve Balfour was also chosen from SCRI's core breeding program for disease resistance and entered national listing in 2000. “The potato is high yielding with good foliage and excellent tuber blight resistance,” says Davies. “It has exceptional resistance to G.pallida, Virus Y and Spraing. Common scab resistance is moderate to good. Vigour is excellent under low fertility conditions while dry matter is high enough for organic processing.”
Vales Sovereign entered the national listing in 2001 and made complete national listing by June 2003. Davies says: “Also from SCRI's core breeding progamme, Vales Sovereign is high yielding with good foliage and tuber blight resistance. In addition it has excellent partial resistance to the potato cyst nematode G.pallida. Dry matter is moderate. It produces excellent skin finish with eye appeal and freedom from out-grades due to its good common scab resistance. With earlier maturity than Cara and good cooking quality Vales Sovereign has the potential to be the first true large-scale ICM-friendly prepack variety.”
While the progress continues in the UK, Greenvale is involved itself in a number of ventures aimed specifically at overseas customers. The most recent of these is Scottish Potato Technology.
“We are constantly looking to develop new varieties for the export market and we have joined forces with other forward-looking companies as a part of Scottish Potato Technology,” says Davies. “We see this as a major step in moving into China and feel that we can offer a great deal in the way of technical and agronomy services.”
Greenvale is launching its new Accumulator process at British Potato, hot on the heels of Restrain (see front cover, Journal, June 20, 2003), which was a £500,000 development to treat potatoes in cold store and limit sprouting without the use of CIPC chemicals.
The company is also excited about the opportunities it sees for new food products it can develop at its flake plant in Wisbech, run by the Greenvale Foods section of the Greenvale business. It will be delighted to discuss these, and the entire Greenvale business with visitors to its stand this week in Newark.
Greenvale can be found at stand 217 at British Potato 2003.
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