Welsh Persevere When Chips Are Down

Homegrown chips in Wales are taking a back seat to imported varieties due to a shortage of Maris Piper potatoes, sources said.

Floods in England and cold weather in Wales have lead to a local shortage of the variety favored by chip shops, the Western Mail reported Friday.

Even though potatoes imported from Spain, Holland and Belgium cost twice the price of a Welsh potato, shops are turning to overseas markets to supply them with spuds, the newspaper reported.

Yields were poor and the quality wasn’t what people would have liked it to have been, Walter Simon, a board member with the National Farmers’ Union, told the Western Mail.

Waseem Akhtar, owner of the Albany Road Fish Bar in Cardiff said his shop hasn’t raised prices because the trade at the moment is down because of the credit crunch and the housing market.

We’ve had to take the hit, he said.

Marketing manager of the Potato Council, Rob Burrow said imports hadn’t risen dramatically and claimed the beloved Maris Piper chips would soon return to chip shops.

It might not be enough to satisfy demand but they will be there, he told the newspaper.