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Top UK Supermarket Bowled over by Jersey Royals

Date: 23/03/2005 | Posted by John Garton
One of the Genuine Jersey Products Association’s (GJPA) founding members, Jersey Pottery, has secured a prestigious deal with the Waitrose supermarket chain to produce over 1,000 Jersey Royal Bowls.

The serving bowls are part of a unique in-house offer to help boost sales of Jersey Royals within Waitrose’s UK stores during its Jersey Royal Season. It also ties in with the 125th anniversary of the Jersey Royal.

Worth about £30 each, these special prizes will be available to Waitrose customers through an instant win scratch card, which will be inserted into 500g, 750g and 1.5kg packs during April and May.

Jonathan Jones, of Jersey Pottery, says: “I am delighted that Jersey Pottery has secured this large contract to help market one of Jersey’s famous agricultural products. We have had only a couple of weeks to complete this prestigious order and it has involved a lot of hard work from our staff. However, the positive response from Waitrose to the bowl has made it all worthwhile.”

The deal was put in place for Waitrose by Solanum Ltd, one of the UK’s largest potato suppliers, whose development manager Rhona Kitson says: “We are really proud of this promotion, which we feel is both a fitting way to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Jersey Royal Potato and to reward Waitrose customers. The team at Jersey Pottery has worked with Solanum and Waitrose every step of the way to ensure the serving bowl met our specific consumer requirements.”

The bowls were designed by Jersey Pottery using artist Richard Bramble and have been given the stamp of approval by the GJPA. This means that will carry the Genuine Jersey logo on them.

Hamish Marett-Crosby, Chairman of the GJPA, says: “This is good news in so many ways. Not only does the deal with Waitrose raise the profile for the Jersey Royal and a leading Jersey company, who is a member of our Association, but it will also help to promote the Genuine Jersey message of the high quality and value of our products.”

The supermarket deal has also pleased Mike Tait, PR manager for Jersey Tourism, who explained that it was initially the result of Tourism commissioning 75 of the bowls to give to influential food journalists to mark the 125th anniversary. The bowls were shown around people in the potato industry, including Waitrose, which was thinking about a competition prize at the time.

Mike says: “This is good publicity for the Jersey Royal and for the Island, and these high quality bowls complement very naturally what we are trying to do to promote both.