Jersey Royal potato

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jersey Royals

Jersey Royals, boiled

Jersey Royal potatoes are Jersey's local variety of new potato.

[edit] History

In 1878 a Jersey farmer called Hugh de la Haye purchased two enormous potatoes displayed on the counter in a local store. That evening he invited some friends for supper and after the meal he showed them the two huge potatoes he had bought, one of them with 15 "eyes" (from which new plants sprout). Hugh and his friends cut this potato into sixteen pieces which they planted in a côtil, a steeply-sloping field, above Bellozanne valley. The following spring the crop was large and early, and though most of it and the parent potatoes were round, one plant solely produced kidney-shaped potatoes, which came to be known as the Jersey Royal Fluke.

Annually the Jersey Royal market has a value of £35m. It is Jersey's biggest crop export, accounting for 70% of agricultural turnover.^[1] 99% of production is exported to the United Kingdom. During the Jersey Royal season, exports from Jersey account for 75% of all potato sales in the United Kingdom.^[2]

[edit] Protected status

Under the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union Jersey Royals are covered by a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO). A complete list of agricultural products with an EU PDO, Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), or Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG), listed alphabetically by nation, is at the Europa Agriculture site.