Loose and dirty – there’s no mistaking how shoppers like their potatoes.

It’s the start of the Great British new potato season, and you can’t argue with the spuds grown by Shropshire farmer Richard Maddocks; they are among the first out of the ground in Britain and, quite simply, they sell themselves.

“When we have introduced these in some Sainsbury’s stores we have seen a 400 per cent uplift in the sales above their normal loose potato sales in the previous week,” says James Lee, from Tern Hill-based potato supplier Greenvale, which supplies Sainsbury’s with 45 per cent of its potatoes in the UK.

As he prepares to supply Sainsbury’s at Meole Brace, Richard has visitors at his farm, Chadwell Grange, near Newport, in the shape of staff from the supermarket.

Wearing regulation uniforms except for fancy wellies with animals on them, today they have swapped their regular aisles for rows of potato plants to learn all about a scheme to supply them with fresh, local produce. Now is the crucial time for potato farmers, and until the end of October, Richard and his small dedicated team will be growing and harvesting different types and varieties.

With one of the dryest springs on record, irrigation has been a particular issue this year.

“March and April were record-breaking months, we’ve had just 12mm of rain on this farm in those months. That would normally be 100mm, about 50mm a month,” says Richard.

“My father who has been around for 70-odd years has never known it like that before.”

Fortunately Richard has his own water supplies, from bore hole sources and winter store reservoirs.

Farming has been in the Maddocks blood for 80 years. Richard himself is a third generation farmer, his grandfather, Wilfred Maddocks, starting out during the depression of the 1930s with just one acre, a pig and a cow.

Today Richard has some 400 acres of land set aside for potatoes, yielding around 7,500 tonnes of spuds a year, of which the lion’s share go to Sainsbury’s.

Richard’s production for the supermarket is part of scheme run by Shropshire supplier Greenvale, which now provides a whopping 45 per cent of all Sainsbury’s potatoes in the UK.

Nutritious

“Local” is very important. James Lee, from Greenvale, says using other growers from around the country means the quickest the potatoes can go from soil to shelf is three to four days.

“What we are doing here is that Richard will be harvesting the potatoes last thing in the afternoon and they will be in the store the next day, and in some cases the same day.

“We have been doing this for seven years. We did try to register with the Guinness Book of Records – we did it once with another grower in Telford by getting the potatoes out of the ground and into the store within 20 minutes.”

The Great British spud, especially in hard times such as these, remains an essential staple. It is, if you like, a survival food in that it is cheap, versatile, filling and nutritious.

“In the recession consumption went up,” says James from Greenvale.

Richard’s spuds are some of the earliest in the UK. He explains: “We are in a unique position on this farm because we have got very sandy ground which enables us to get onto the fields early in February to plant the crops, but we cover them in a very fine fleece to bring them on.”

As you might expect from a grower whose dinner plate contains potatoes five days a week, the Great British spud is a passion of Richard’s.

“It frustrates me when we have a lot of potatoes that have been imported into the UK from Holland of France or wherever. The potato is still an important part of people’s diet.

“It’s very versatile – you can boil it, you can mash it, make chips or crisps if you want to.”

What’s the most interesting thing Richard has done with a spud then?

“Ten years ago we secured a contract to supply prisons, one hundred tonnes a week,” he says. “I used to wonder how on earth they got through that much. A lot of prisoners, maybe.”

Yet spud specification is getting harder. Supermarkets often want only the smoothest and best looking produce.

But it’s not always a beauty pageant for vegetables; some customers like to pick them up and have a feel.

“Our new potatoes are a little unique because they are dirty and the skins are a little bit loose, and that is part of the freshness and they appeal to the customer.”

Indeed, potatoes that are imported are often washed and have peat put on them to keep them fresh before being transported to these shores.

Eight thousand years after the potato originated in the Andes of South America, and 6,000 years after Inca Indians in Peru first cultivated them, there are around 450 varieties of potato grown in the UK.

Loved by the British public, the humble spud knows how to blow its own tuba. It even a its own website or two, and fans can, should they wish, follow the Potato Girls on Twitter.

Furthermore, spuds are sexy. A recent survey revealed nearly nine out of ten women in the UK were impressed by men who had potatoes in their baskets.

Fads for food, naturally, come and go, but the spud is a hardy perennial in the fashion stakes and more recently Harden’s, the pocket-size guide to restaurants in London, found that on menus in restaurants frequented by the likes of Cheryl Cole, Lady Gaga, Jude Law or the Beckham’s, potatoes reign supreme.

Back at Chadwell Grange to learn about the journey of her store’s spuds, Sainsbury’s worker Lisa Miller, says: “People who shop in the supermarket love to know that produce comes from a local farm.

“People, especially in somewhere like Shropshire where they are passionate about their food, want to know the provenance of what they are buying.

“The store likes to support local farms and this is why we are here today to get the message back to the colleagues – how it starts from the beginning, right to the store.”

Potatoes are the centre of the British dishes and, out in one of his potato fields as Richard uses his fork to dig a few out, meal ideas are already occurring to Sainsbury’s worker Caron Barkley.

“Salmon and asparagus,” says Caron.

“Lamb and mint sauce,” says farmer Richard.

“Mash and anything!” says produce aisle worker Janet Glass.

l For more news and views from the local agricultural scene, see today’s eight-page Farming special, inside the Business Star supplement.