A group of leading potato industry stakeholders has drawn up tentative proposals for a new representative body, provisionally called GB Potatoes, reports Nancy Nicolson for The Courier.
The ten respected professionals, including Agrico UK executive director Archie Gibson and Perthshire producer Euan Grewar as well as others across the UK, insist a new inclusive organisation is necessary to represent the industry, commission future research and bring together all elements of the supply chain in the wake of the vote to reject the statutory AHDB levy.
They have distanced themselves from the Growers’ Better Levy Group (GBLG), and say their approach is to bring all sectors together via voluntary subscription and membership.
A paper on provisional ideas for a GB Potatoes organisation is currently being circulated to stakeholders in an attempt to define how the industry should go forward, how any representative body would operate and what it would do. The paper states a “less bureaucratic, more inclusive, and more appropriately funded successor” to the AHDB is required.
