Taste for rice chips away at potato sales

SALES of rice and noodles are booming while families are falling out of love with potatoes.

Shoppers are increasingly being enticed by the perceived convenience and exotic flavours of rice and noodle dishes, research suggests.

Volume sales of potatoes fell by 36.5million kilos (80.5million pounds) – 5.4 per cent – between 2015 and 2017, according to trade magazine The Grocer. Data from analysts Kantar Worldpanel also showed rice sales have surged by more than 30 per cent since 2014. And flavoured noodle sales have increased by 4.2 per cent.

Britons still eat four times more potato-based than ricebased meals. But Nadia Follon, marketing manager for Uncle Ben’s rice said: ‘The dishes [potatoes] are associated with, like roasts, are... calorific and take longer to prepare.’