Jersey Royal season hit by weather

The Jersey Royal potato season is at least three weeks late this year after the “Beast from the East” snowstorm delayed the planting of the muchanticipated spring crop.

The potato’s short seasonal window, usually from April to mid-july, is behind schedule after hard frosts and almost double the 30-year average of rainfall in December and January left the ground saturated and “undesirable for planting”, growers said.

Jersey normally exports around 30,000 tonnes of the potatoes to the UK each season. But producers said that the figure could be up to 20 per cent lower this year, with full volumes now expected to be on supermarket shelves by mid-may.