Branston employees harvest their Smile

07 August 2009

This week Branston employees have been harvesting the crops of Smile potatoes that they planted back in March. Branston staff, along with family and friends, purchased Smile growing kits on Red Nose Day and raised over £2,000 for Comic Relief.

Technical Director, Nick Turnbull, came up with the idea of growing the bright red Smile variety: “It seemed like an ideal way to capture the fun theme of Red Nose Day and we thought it would help our employees appreciate what’s involved in growing potatoes, albeit on a very small scale.”

Staff have been nurturing their container-grown spuds throughout the summer in the hope of winning the competition for the biggest crop or the individual Best Smile. There was intense rivalry, with a range of different composts and techniques being tried.

In Lincoln the winner of the highest yield was Steve Bryan, Environmental and Utilities Manager, with a huge crop weighing 2.66kg. The prize for the Best Smile was awarded to Shannon Good, the daughter of Carol Good who works on the factory night shift as a Machine Operative.

At the South West site the winner of the highest yield was Kye Davies from the Maintenance Team, with a whopping load of 2.98kg, while Mareck Zaborski from the QA Team won the Best Smile category.