Thursday 21 July 2011

From potato to crisps... the journey to Walkers...

Elveden farms are the first farm in the East of England that Walkers Crisps visit with their grading line. Elveden provide them with the first 7,000 tonnes of potatoes.

The potatoes which are grown 3 rows in a bed of soil, are first topped using flails, as seen below:

A harvester follows, removing the tops and soil and putting the potatoes on top of the next bed.



The second harvester follows and gently lifts the potatoes from both beds, removes the tops and sifts out the soil before elevating them to a cart running along side.




Back in the yard the potatoes are first inspected dry.

They are then washed and rinsed before further inspection.


A final check before loading into a lorry, seen below:

and off to the factory in Leicestershire.


How many packets of crisps in 7,000 tonnes of potatoes??



...



Around 75 million Bags!