Potato identity crisis
for the same quality of potato, reports new findings issued by the
UK Food Standards Agency this week.
Mislabelling is leading customers to pay up to €50 per tonne more for the same quality of potato reports new findings issued by the Food Standard Agency this week.
"It is clear that consumers are not always getting what they are paying for, and this is unacceptable. Whilst mislabelling of potatoes in some shops and on some market stalls may be down to incorrect variety labelling at wholesalers or lack of knowledge of the labelling requirements, the bottom line is that consumers are losing out," said Rosemary Hignett, head of food labelling and standards at the FSA.
By law potatoes on retail sale are required to be labelled with the name of the variety. A suprising third of the 294 potatoes sampled in the survey were found to be incorrectly labelled.
Using DNA technology developed by Agency-funded research, the potatoes were selected from a range of shops and wholesale markets and had their genetic material compared with the DNA profiles of 98 different potato varieties held on a database.
Nearly all of the wrongly labelled samples came from smaller, independent retailers, fruit & vegetable shops, stalls and wholesalers.
The results showed that 16 per cent of potatoes were lacking labels with sufficient information and 17 per cent of the the sample studied were not of the variety or origin that the label claimed them to be.
"There is clearly a particular problem at wholesale markets, and we are working with local authorities on follow-up action to make sure that this is resolved," said Hignett.
The potatoes most likely to be mislabelled were King Edwards. Of the 37 samples taken that were labelled as King Edwards, 43 per cent were another variety. Most of these were actually a little-known variety called Ambo.
With the difference in variety often comes a difference in price, as much as 40 per cent in some cases. Recent industry figures indicate that King Edwards potatoes sell for approximately €50 per tonne more than the Ambo variety.
With retailers increasingly marketing the differences between varieties of potatoes because of their particular characteristics such as taste and texture, the FSA haS found that people are not always getting the type or quality of potato they are paying for.
