Farmer donates 13.5 tonnes of spuds to charities

A farmer who was left with more than 12 tonnes of potatoes after a cancelled order has managed to donate them to charities and food banks.

Luke Abblitt, who runs Daintree Farm in Ramsey in Cambridgeshire, had prepared 540 bags of spuds for delivery to a fish and chip shop, but the order was cancelled at short notice, leaving him with stock already nearing the end of its usable life.

Last week, he said he had "already lost money on them" and wanted to "make something good out of the bad and donate them to food banks".

He described the experience of getting rid of them as "heart-warming", adding that "they all went within two days - we had an overwhelming amount of inquiries".

Abblitt is a fourth-generation farmer who grows potatoes, sugar beet and barley. He is a tenant on a Cambridgeshire County Council holding.

Earlier this year, he started taking orders via social media and delivering the crop to customers' homes across Peterborough, Huntingdonshire and Fenland.

He said it had "not been a great year for potatoes" and cited oversupply issues in Europe and struggling fish and chip shops where "expenses have risen — electricity, business rates, wages".

"So, they're having to put more money on the fish and chips, therefore people are not eating as much fish and chips anymore," he said.

He said securing large orders had been slow since December.

"Having an order cancelled isn't the end of the world - this happens quite regularly," he said.

"Normally there's someone else that will pick the order up within a few hours or a couple of days.

"But as the weeks dragged on, we realised there was no hope of reselling."

The potatoes, worth at least £3,000, were donated to food banks and charities including Cambridge Sustainable Food, Oxmoor Community Group in Huntingdon and Whittlesey Community Pantry.

"I was trying to turn it into something positive and get them to people that really are struggling," he said.

"I was overwhelmed [with requests] and they went really quickly.

"The feedback has been fantastic, and everyone's been so grateful. A lot of people actually stopped and listened to why I've come to this point."

Abblitt said the agriculture industry was "struggling".

"I'm a tenant farmer. It is a tough life to be in at the minute, and it's just getting tougher," he said.

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