Collaborate

What is collaborate?

Collaborate is integrating our work with the potato industry. We are funded by the potato industry, from growers, packers and processors. Potato Council can only be successful with the support from the industry. The Potato industry are hugely supportive of our work, from the consumer campaigns to Grow Your Own and communicating other issues such as sustainability, growing the crop, planting and harvesting, storage – everything to do with potatoes in fact.

See above, our Promotional vehicle is available for levy payers to use to help promote potatoes, see 'Get Involved' pages to see how you can book it

What is the benefit to the industry from this work?

We regularly meet with levy payers in the supply chain about how they can maximise the opportunities around our campaigns. These opportunities seek to add value to supply chain activities around promotion. For example, showing the health, convenience and versatility of potatoes through recipes available online, that packers and retailers can also use at point of sale. We have also worked with processors to promote National Chip Week and developed branding on retail store packs about the campaign – linking to key messages, competitions and recipes.

Consumers are also interested in where their food comes from and so we recruited ten ‘Potato Ambassadors’ to help us communicate with our target audience. All these ambassadors are potato growers, who live life on the farm and manage modern farm businesses. We have ambassadors from across the country:

• South West – Reuben Collins

• South – Nick Baird

• South East – Matt Spanton

• East of England – Tim Briscoe

• Central – Andrea Adams

• Wales – Walter Simon

• Yorkshire – Ben Sykes

• North West – Robin Cropper

• North East – Anthony Carroll

• Scotland – Allan Stevenson

See more about the Potato Ambassadors

Our campaigns generate national, regional and local news. Without industry support this wouldn't be possible. Media page

What have been the successes?

By integrating the work with the industry we can unite on bringing consistent messages together about the potato, this helps the entire sector to drive sales and promote the product together

What is the work based on? Our evidence…

We know consumers are interested in where their food comes from and this is backed up by our research on consumer attitudes and trends. See our research here 

I want to be involved, how can I do this?

We will be looking for new ambassadors in 2012. We will keep you informed about our campaign for this, if in the meantime you are interested in the role and what it involves, please speak to Maria Ball, 024 7647 8773 or email: maria.ball@potato.ahdb.org.uk.