National Chip Week: Champion chips
IF THERE'S two things they know about in the Cambridgeshire fens, it's potatoes and wind.
On a chilly January day, the former are piled up in a virtual spud mountain at the entrance to the business end of the McCain factory in Whittlesey, just outside Peterborough, while the latter is blasting straight off the Russian steppes. In the process, it turns the three large wind turbines which dominate the biggest chip factory in Europe.
It's a very visible sign of the efforts McCain has put into raising its game in environmental terms. The turbines not only help to power the factory, they return electricity to the national grid. The Whittlesey factory also has its own methane plant, using the gas produced by the bugs which digest potato waste to help meet the factory's energy needs.
Additional waste, such as the skins and defects - the black and green bits we hate to find in our chips - is used as animal feed. The water which controls the flow of potatoes through the factory is recycled and reused, and the oil used to fry the chips goes to food wholesaler 3663 to be converted into biofuel for its delivery fleet.
Add to that the fact that McCain purchases 12 per cent of the total UK potato crop, and guarantees that all its chips are made with 100 per cent British potatoes, and the company is clearly working to meet consumer concerns about sustainability and local sourcing.
The company uses 5,000 tonnes of potatoes a week at Whittlesey alone, one of four factories around the UK. The potatoes arrive straight from the farm and are converted into chips and frozen within a few hours.
A water-based system moves them around the factory to minimise bruising. On the day in question, they're making Rustic skin-on fries, and crinkle cut Homefries, which go to pubs as part of the Signatures Gourmet range.
The crinkle cut chips are examined automatically for defects, with a computer-controlled machine which uses a camera to spot black bits and then slices them out with a blade. For the Rustic chips, the process has to be carried out by old-fashioned eye-and-hand technology.
The factory also produces bespoke products such as Tribute ale beer battered chips for St Austell Brewery. The end result is a natural product containing no more than potatoes and oil apart from, in the case of certain varieties, a light batter for added crispness.
