Same sort of suspicious mind as me, Jimmy. They have been selling these for a year or two now. I can understand that it just might be possible to produce a few genuinely newly grown potatoes in a tunnel, but not in the quantities that are available in every supermarket in the country.

Some of the greenhouses these days are so big, they could easily cover 10 football pitches. They are also totally climate controlled...everything from temp, watering, feeding, humidity, lighting, ventilation etc etc is all done by computer.

English tomatoes are available all year round, can't see why it should be any different for spuds

I'm with Bulba on this I reckon they are stored from the previous year… The cost of producing potatoes in a large greenhouse environment would mean they needed to be more expensive that they are in my view.

I found the following news article from last year:

Today, Tesco said they would abide by the new standard and look at re labelling their Miniature New, Baby New and New 2.5kg products.
A spokesman said: 'We are pleased to support The Potato Council's new industry standard description of 'new' potatoes.
'New or salad potatoes are popular with our customers all year round. We would love to be able to supply freshly lifted new potatoes year-round from UK growers but due to the nature of the growing season, this isn't possible, so we use cold storage to ensure we can always meet customer demand.
'We will be reviewing the labelling of three of our potato products to be sure we are giving the clearest possible information to our customers in line with the 'new' definition.'

So now we know!

Can't say I am remotely surprised… Perhaps the other big chains will admit to this too now!

Hi, I keep trying to convince my wife that there is a vast difference between 'new' potato's, and 'salad' potato's, the latter as Snoopdog says are 'pig' potato's here too, it's just a fancy way of getting us to pay an exorbitant price for something that used to be thrown away, Derek.

Hi Derek - sorry I disagree 'new' potatoes should be just that… 'salad potatoes' could have a dodgy history! But the supermarkets are calling potatoes they have store for the best part of a year 'new'! The only real solution is to grow your own and when they have had it eat rice and pasta (if you can!).
MG

I have noticed this too. Luckily, in town is a proper old-fashioned greengrocer. She labels things as they are. Which is how it should be. A gift from above is the 'grocer. :)

I'm not sure about that Sainsbury's has charlotte and vivaldi potatoes which they describe as 'salad potatoes', which indeed they are. They are not the chats which would in the past have been fed to pigs. I don't know what other supermarkets are selling as 'salad potatoes' though.

So what is the industry definition of 'new' potatoes? For me, the only ones worth buying are Jersey Royals (or Jersey Mids if Royals are too scarce).
Jersey Royals will be late this year as the planting was delayed by the cold/wet weather.

There is a wealth of first early potatoes which are 'new' if they are harvested and sold then and there. The supermarkets tend to stick to a very limited number of varieties - ones they know will sell I guess…

This is, I think the best list of all the different potato varieties:

http://www.varieties.potato.org.uk/varietyindex.php?page_no=1

That helps - a combination of variety and when they're harvested then.
Given the number of varieties is the lack of choice down to commercial growers or the supermarkets or that the customers don't demand something different?

I think it is all of your points Urbanite… but mostly I suspect it is the supermarkets not wanting to risk anything other than the tried and tested and the customers not knowing there are so many different varieties of potato out there. We've lost part of the ground we used to grow vegetables on, logic would say 'well you can buy potatoes easily' grow something you can't. But we love the pink fir apple potatoes and I've never seen those for sale anywhere… so in they go - organic onions, carrots, brassicas, leeks etc. we can buy so they didn't get planted. Peas and broad beans d however :-)