28 September 2026
Recently, some of the J L Priestley & Co Ltd team paid a visit to Lamb Weston’s Cambridgeshire factory, to uncover the journey behind our potato flake.
Lamb Weston are a huge multi-national company, with a long and accomplished history of innovating and pushing boundaries within the food industry. With 76 years of experience behind them, they are widely recognised as one of the world’s biggest names in the potato supply chain today.
Lamb Weston have partnerships with farms across the UK and around the world, working with local farmers and supporting them to plan their potato crop and cultivation progamme. For over 15 years, J L Priestley & Co Ltd and Lamb Weston have worked closely together to supply 100% British potato flake to our customers across the UK.
Our journey with Lamb Weston begins when the seeds are planted, often in fields right on our doorstep. We visited a Batemans Farm in nearby Cambridgeshire, and saw some of the potato fields where Lamb Weston’s UK crops are grown.
There are many different varieties of potato that go into our flake, the potatoes pictured below are Markies, a Dutch variety generally known for it’s high yield, light yellow colour, and tolerance for drought stress.
This field of Markies are growing in rich, fine soil with very few stones. This incredibly high quality soil was brought to the farm from the bottom of the North Sea, over 150 years ago!
Some of these fields are irrigated, and some aren’t. Choosing to leave some fields without irrigation saves energy and water, both limited and expensive commodities.
It’s no secret that this summer has been a challenging growing season for potatoes, due to the extreme heat and lack of rain, with smaller than average crops across the board. With this year’s drought taking a heavy toll, it is only due to the foresight of Lamb Weston and the steps they took to plant a more stable and resilient crop that this field has seen potatoes as large as it has. While only half the size of previous years, these potatoes are rather impressive when considering that this field was not irrigated, and thus received no water for approximately 10 weeks of 30°+ heat this summer.
It is an encouraging notion that despite the climate challenges we face in the years ahead, preparation and planning by companies like Lamb Weston can work to reduce the knock on effects felt by consumers and the food industry. Foresight, adaptability, and strategic planning are the markers of a conscientious and dependable company, and Lamb Weston demonstrate these qualities in their acceptance of the situation, and their forward planning both with this year’s challenging crop, and looking into the future. J L Priestley & Co Ltd are proud to reflect this attitude in our own operations, and though in our partnership with Lamb Weston.
Once the potatoes are harvested from the fields, they are stored in large warehouses. Pictured here are a harvest of Fontane variety potatoes. This warehouse holds 3.5 tonnes of potatoes, and is just one of many. With potatoes stacked high to the ceiling, it’s a huge undertaking to keep the temperature down, ensuring ventilation and protection from pests, not to mention accessing the potatoes with forklift machinery. Working with such vast quantities of produce, as well as heavy machinery and extreme weather makes health and safety a paramount concern on farms such as this.
Lamb Weston UK Potato Supply Manager John Sedgwick says “Health and safety is a huge part of what we do. Farming is the most dangerous industry in the UK.” Lamb Weston’s farms take every step to ensure compliance and the highest possible health and safety standards to promote the wellbeing of the farm workers as well as the security of the crops.
Then we move on to the factory, where just 5% of the potatoes entering will leave as potato flake, the remaining 95% destined to become chips. This 5% make their way to the potato flake line, and are joined by slivers from the fry line that are too small to become chips, and otherwise would have gone to waste. Because potatoes have a high water content, the processed potatoes see an 80% reduction in weight before emerging as potato flake. That means if 100 tonnes of potatoes are processed, the result will be 20 tonnes of flake. Of course, this is what gives the flake its incredible binding and absorbing qualities that make it such a versatile ingredient!
The potatoes are graded to remove any damaged materials, then washed, steam peeled, riced, cooked, and cooled, all the while being regularly inspected. The factory is heavily automated and highly technical, with just a few members of staff on hand to manage the process and run hourly QC checks.
Things in the factory start to heat up when the potato is drum dried, and extruded into a very thin papery sheet which is immediately crumbled into flake. It is broken down as far as required, with output capacity ranging from large flakes of around 6mm through to fine milled powder. The flake is then packaged by an automatic and sealed robotic packing system, and stacked onto a pallet in a tower of 44 x 12.5kg bags, which are sealed into large, tight fitting bag to ensure complete product integrity when deliveries commence. The system is clean, efficient, and highly consistent.
From the factory, shipments of potato flake are delivered to J L Priestley & Co Ltd premises, ready to ship out to our own customers. We work closely with the UK’s biggest and best food manufacturers, supplying them with potato flake alongside an extensive range of other dried vegetables, herbs, spices and fruits.
A big thank you to the Lamb Weston team for such an extensive and insightful tour of their UK production facility, as well as our informative visit to Batemans Crown Farm.
J L Priestley & Co Ltd will continue to work closely with Lamb Weston to secure high quality potato flake for our customers, ensuring the supply they need is there when they need it. From just a few kilos to hundreds of tonnes – whatever you need, J L Priestley & Co Ltd can help you secure your supply now and into the future. Email us on hello@jlpriestley.com, or call 01529 419950 today.
