Andrew's tour of Yorkshire and the Humber Crisps fit for the Queen

Date Published:

04/09/2008

Map user, NM, added The Yorkshire Crisp Company to the Map saying: "[The company] prides itself in only using quality produce grown in the region by local farmers: the potatoes are delivered to the factory by tractor from the farm 5 miles away. Their new Henderson's Relish flavour is great!" I went along to see for myself

The Yorkshire Crisp Company’s website bares the phrase: "When God created Yorkshire he was just showing off." Standing here in a field pulling up spuds you can almost believe it. I'm with managing director, Tony Bishop, and we're looking at the whole crisp production process, which as you know starts with potatoes. "We've a good range of loam soils in the region," says Tony. "Yorkshire’s also got a blend of large urban population mixed with plenty of farmland. There's also the M1, M18 and A1 which means we can get the product distributed easily." He picks up the fork and begins to unearth the spuds. "These are Hermes, a main crop potato that's great for making crisps," says Tony. According to the British Potato Council Hermes has a high dry content. (i.e. too much water in it) and a good fry colour. After digging up three buckets full we head back to the factory.

The potatoes are simply washed and sliced with the peel left on. "That's where a lot of the flavour is," says Tony. They move along the conveyor belt to the fryer. This contains pure sunflower oil and comes up to 172˚C. "A potato is roughly about 80 per cent water and 20 per cent dry matter, so when you're frying the by-product is steam. And the process of making a soft potato crisp involves getting rid of the moisture, to render the dry matter crisp at the end of the process." They're then removed, drained and passed through a drum that spins them and coats them with the flavour of choice. "All out favours are completely natural," says Tony. "We remove the moisture from the flavours reducing it to a powder, which is applied to the still-warm crisp." And in the case of the new Henderson's Relish flavour that took some doing. From there it's a final check over before being bagged and packed and dispatched to everywhere from local farm shops to Fortnum and Mason's food hall. "It filled me with immense pride to go from a factory unit that was just a shell four years ago to standing in the food hall of the Queen's grocers with our crisps," says Tony.

How it all came about

Tony and his business partner Ashley Turner set up Yorkshire Crisps four years ago. "We looked at the market and the growth area was in the luxury end of the market, people were sharing snacks in the evening with drinks," says Tony. They started out with four basic flavours, which they've now expanded to nine, (including plain 'nowt on' style). They also do parsnip crisps. "Very tricky to get a parsnip to crisp up," says Tony. "They've a much higher sugar content which can burn in the fryer. I ruined two tonnes of them before getting the process that worked for us." The environmental impact of the process is also taken into account. All the factory's waste products go to a local pig farmer and the spent oil is refined into bio-diesel that fuels the delivery vans.

Finally, as I go to leave, a delivery of the newly printed drums for the Henderson's Relish flavour arrives. Tony's launching them this weekend in Fortnum and Mason. As they come of the wagon we take one out for an inspection and listed under the ingredients is tender loving care.

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