Thank you all for your support over this past year.
Here's a brief overview of Potato House and Skea Organics for 2022
As we came out of the restrictions of Covid, we hit political turmoil and escalating prices. Farming is not immune to these problems, and indeed our harvest cost seemed to increase every day. As our prices include delivery, the rising price of fuel and therefore delivery charges were a huge headache as we tried to set our prices. We also have the cost of our storage and of course our staff. Up until now, we have not increased our prices mid-season, however there is always a first for everything.
Our breeding programme is going well, and we hope to have some brand-new varieties listed for you in the next year or two. It is a slow process though - read more here. Andrew recently was on Beechgrove talking tatties and our varieties - well worth a watch.
We have a few new varieties on sale this year for seed, Alanis, Acoustic and Java.
2022 certainly threw everything at us from late frosts, droughts, downpours, heatwaves and hail in August.
We opened our web in September for our domestic seed potato customers when we had the majority of our varieties harvested and inspected. We now have all seed potato varieties up for sale.
We know that gardeners and allotmenteers appreciate that they can order in the autumn for a delivery date in the spring. We have had several thousand orders in, with the vast majority picking a delayed delivery date. As the weather conditions vary so much across the UK, we are proud to offer this free service to our customers. There is no date that suits everyone and the most popular is the end of February, but we have orders in for every week from January to mid-April. It will all depend on the last frost date for your area.
We had a 98% success rate for this service in 2022, and actually identified ways to improve this. Order in confidence now to ensure your favourite varieties are sent to you on the week you ask in top condition. Some varieties have already sold out and some will sell out soon. As we grow and supply over 70 varieties, some of our rare varieties are only grown in small quantities.
In November, our staff were busy grading and netting over 70 varieties in several different net sizes and then we started to dispatch earlier than we had hoped at the start of December, however the cold weather soon put a stop to that. We will resume the first week of January.
Potato Days are back for 2023
We already have many potato days in our diary and are excited to see a return to normality where tubers of many varieties are laid out in a town hall for people to buy by the tuber. We also supply weird and wonderful venues - like this phone booth stall in Leith. You are not too late to arrange a potato day for your allotment society or other growing group. We offer huge discounts to organisers. We have a dedicated newsletter for this, so please let us know if you would like more information.
For our larger customers, where pallets are used, we have been busy getting these orders away. These customers will include mid scale farmers for planting as well as shops. We are delighted to have orders for 6 tubers along side our orders for many tonnes. No order is too small - or too large! We have set days for dispatching our large orders throughout the season.
For a number of yearsPotato House has been supplying several box schemes and restaurants across the UK as well as local customers with our Potatoes to Eat. In 2022 we decided to put some more time to this and are delighted to have a dedicated area on our web for our washed Potatoes to Eat range.
Our heritage and speciality ranges are quite spectacular, and the high quality we are renowned for in seed potatoes is replicated in our Potatoes To Eat range. We have coloured potatoes, and some are organic. We also have great value potatoes for baking, boiling and chips.
This has taken off really well and we are building on our trade customers with a growing fan base of domestic customers. The week before Christmas was very busy as people bought their roasties and some coloured potatoes for their special meal this weekend. It is exciting for us to know that our Arran Victory will be served up as the centre piece to Christmas Dinner across the UK from Ullapool to Uxbridge.
What are YOU having with your roasties this year? Turkey, nut loaf or more potatoes?
We have some recipes on our web for you to try as well. Start to plan your January dinner parties!
We have had some press interest in our new ventrue and Karen Gimson who writes for Garden News Magazine as well as her own blog, wrote about trying some potoates before you dedicate the space to grow them.
Perhaps you fancy trying some potatoes prior to growing them; or have grown a variety and run out, or perhaps you have heard a chef mention a variety - whatever the reason, we are here to supply you with your potatoes to eat.
We have 2 different newsletters for our Potatoes to Eat range - for domestic and commercial (shops, eating establishments and box schemes).
Did you forget someone? Quick! Buy a voucher
f you have a gardening or cooking friend to buy a gift for, remember that if you can say it with flowers you can say it with Potatoes! You could get the next generation of young gardeners into growing their own veg and buy a very quirky gift to start a family competition.
Our gift cards can be spent on our To Eat Range, so perhaps you will be encouraging the new Chef.
Gift Card
£10.00 – £50.00And what is on my Santa list? It would be appreciated if you could leave us a review and recommend us to your friends - that would be a great Christmas present!
We are a small family business and we really appreciate when our customers share our social media pages and pass our newsletter to friends. The number of new customers who come from us via word of mouth is amazing.
A lot of new customers also look at reviews before their first contact. We use Trust Pilot, Google and also Facebook - if you use any of these, we would really appreciate a review about our products and service. You can also leave a product review on our page.
We take a break over Christmas. Our web is open with a great FAQ. We would love to see some pics of your Christmas Potatoes on our Social Media.
@potatohouseuk
#seedpotatoes
#PotatoHouseToEat
#ThePotatoVariety - eg #ArranVictory
To all our customers and friends - have a lovely relaxing Merry Christmas and a Happy New Potato.
From our family business
Andrew & Amy Skea
Potato House
22 December 2022
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