Supply chain sustainability the focus for McCain

“Without the potatoes, we do not have a business,” he said.

Relationships

“Having that direct relationship, we can understand quicker what is going on at farm level.”

And when the hospitality closure hit McCain before planting they were able to speak with growers about the challenges they faced.

"We were quite fortunate it happened before planting so we were able to have those conversations, reduce contracts back by 15 per cent."

The McCain farmer pledge, an investment of £25m in the British potato industry, was focused on trying to build certainty for farmers facing weather volatility.

Farmers were spending grant money on investments such as self-propelled harvesters and irrigation.

And Mr Metheringham said for the potato industry, climate change was not something to plan for but something which was already hitting their crops.

Looking forward to 2021, Mr Metheringham said there was a huge amount of uncertainty across the whole sector outside of Covid-19.

“In the potato crop, there is the question of managing storage without CIPC,” he said.

But he said there were reasons to be positive, with sales better than expected.

He added with Brexit they were in a positive position due to their integrated British supply chain and there could be opportunities in import substitution.