Cockerill leading way in potato revolution

PepsiCo, parent company of Walkers Crisps, Quaker Oats and Copella apple juice, has promised to reduce the water and carbon consumption of its farming in UK and Ireland by 50 per cent over five years.

And it turns out RS Cockerill of Dunnington, York, played a big part in persuading PepsiCo the promises were possible.

For nearly 10 years, Cockerill's has been the food giant's north of England test ground for water-frugal potatoes, and different watering methods, and the results of those and similar experiments convinced PepsiCo to commit to replacement of the standard range of crisping potatoes – Lady Rosetta, Saturna and Hermes.

For commercial reasons, PepsiCo will not specify the replacement varieties but they are conventional hybrids, developed in the US, without any artificial genetic manipulation.

Most of the possibles grew too white for the British market and half the job has been finding strains with enough yellow in the flesh.

Now some suitable candidates are out-performing everything else in the Dunnington fields, with nil irrigation, according to Martin Cockerill, managing director of the Yorkshire business, which was founded by his father, Ronald.

Water shortages may be rare in this part of the world, but he said: "There is a carbon footprint to irrigation, from the energy and labour which goes into it."

David Wilkinson, agriculture director of PepsiCo Europe, said: "Water is an issue in parts of England. Also, the lessons we are learning with potatoes in the UK will be applied to other crops and other countries."

The new potatoes are seven per cent of Walkers' UK requirements this year and that will be 15-18 per cent next year, on the way to 75 per cent in 2015.

Lately, Cockerill's has also been among a small number of farmers using computer programmes organised by PepsiCo to aid "precision farming". Sensors in the fields report back on soil conditions to a programme called i-crop, developed at Cambridge University, and it makes watering recommendations which take weather forecasts into account.

Another programme, The Cool Farm Tool, from Aberdeen University, gives advice on keeping down carbon emissions through cultivation, fertiliser and pesticide decisions.

There is no compulsion or price incentive to follow the advice but PepsiCo says its farmers can see the point.

Its crisps already carry a commitment to carbon reduction and environmental assurances are likely to become more important.

Cockerill's runs the packing and distribution which delivers 100,000 tonnes a year to Walkers in Skelmersdale and Peterlee, and monitors growing standards for other suppliers as well as contributing its own potatoes.

Its agronomist, Ben Tyreman, said thinking about their carbon footprint had led them to start shed-by-shed monitoring of the cooling energy required to stop potato deterioration – measured through sugars content.

The low-water potatoes had turned out to be particularly good.

CW 30/10/10