Scotland is set to smash the mash market with the launch of the first-ever range of pre-prepared potato dishes made from home-grown tubers.
Albert Bartlett, the UK’s leading supplier of potatoes, will create 50 new jobs at its headquarters in Airdrie when it opens a new state-of-the-art £17m production factory in September.
Investment by HSBC and the Scottish government represents a major development for the potato producer, which processes a fifth of the fresh potatoes sold in the UK and has operations across Scotland, England, Ireland, Jersey France, the Netherlands, Canada and the US.
The funding means it is now able to diversify into developing a range of chilled prepared dishes for the first time – starting with Scottish mash.
READ MORE: Edinburgh oats firm taps into healthy children's market with new Stoaters snack bars
Bartletts has already won a prize three-year contract with one of the big four supermarkets – whose name cannot yet be revealed - for its mash range and the new Airdrie factory will have the capability of producing 35,000 tonnes, or 74 million 400g packs, for sale across the UK each year from September.
Made with Maris Pipers grown in Ayrshire, Tayside, Fife, and the Scottish Borders, the move will see Bartletts supply 30% of the current market – and put it in direct competition with Irish brand Mash Direct, which is currently available in most Scottish supermarkets. Talks with other supermarkets are currently being fielded.
A new production kitchen at Airdrie, with its own development chef, was opened this week. In addition to buttery mash other varieties such as cheesy mash, root veg mash and Colcannon likely to follow, using vegetables grown by its sister company, Scotty Brand.
READ MORE: Young's seafood confirms Pinneys site will close
Earlier this year, the Scottish Government awarded Bartletts the largest ever Food Processing, Marketing and Co-operation grant of £4m to expand its potato growing capacity in Scotland and to diversity into the growing convenience market. The award contributed to the £17m investment in the new factory and production kitchen, which will allow Bartletts to introduce new chilled potato products.
Ronnie Bartlett, chair of the company founded by his grandfather Albert in 1948, said: “Airdrie is at the heart of what we do, and when our new production factory starts operating in September we will be able to meet growing demand for convenient, pre-prepared dishes and deliver a bit of magic for our customers with a range of Albert Bartlett pre-prepared dishes. We are grateful to HSBC and the Scottish government for their support in this.”
READ MORE: Time to switch to vegan fish
At the opening Bartlett’s production kitchen, chef Andrew Fairlie, patron of Scotland’s only two Michelin starred restaurant at the Gleneagles Hotel, said: “I have been a brand ambassador for Bartletts for over 20 years and to witness the progression of the company over that time has been a fantastic journey for me. I am delighted with this new development kitchen, which marks stage three of the company’s growth.
“Having watched the groundwork being laid by Ronnie I know he doesn’t do things by half. If he didn’t think he could up the standard on chilled potato products he wouldn’t be doing it.
“This is really exciting news for retailers and for customers. I am sure that with its new range of chilled potato products Bartletts will take the market by storm.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel