Yes new potatoes in March, usually from Israel, but at what price. Could be as you say grown in tunnels but with under soil heating and artificial lighting, cheating normal growing and what do they taste like.

But these specifically stated UK!

Yes, grown in tunnels with underground heating and artificial lighting in the U.K. I have tried it in a greenhouse heated with electric lighting for Easter. All the foliage became covered in aphids hence a very poor crop of small potatoes. They tasted like soap. I have kept new potatoes in a biscuit tin buried in the ground below frost levels for 6 months, end result was potatoes withered.

Tesco do have growers that have huge greenhouses my store manager thinks they are in Kent he said these are produced by the massive amounts hence low prices) They taste OK They also have Yorkshire potatoes and carrots where they grow them I do not have a clue

I've often wondered about the "new" potatoes too...I don't think they have the same flavour as the new potatoes grown in season. It must involve some artificial means of growing them throughout the "off" season.

Thanks for that, Steve, will just have to try tasting them now. I am not sure that I approve of this type of food production but our 2010 main crop potatoes are starting to go soft now and soon will have to go in the bin.

There are greenhouses etc next door to suger beet factory's(Kings lynne/Peterborough) which they use waste heat and warm water etc
there is a big greenhouse site in Kent ( think it's called Thanet Earth) yes Thanet Earth but they grow veg's and next door to power station using waste co2 and heat

You are now making it sound more acceptable, Jiffy. Thank you.

But it could be the labels??????
In the paper other day
Restaurants and food outlets
Welsh lamb from New Zealand
Somerset butter from Scotand
Devon ham from Denmark
Hand made potato cakes were frozen hash browns

Daily Telegraph Monday March 7

Tesco will not do that they are very strict with there labeling and also very concious of bad publicity the last thing any tesco producer wants is Sir Terry reading at his breakfast table Daily Telegraph is tesco being done for false labeling.

I really like the idea that they are using waste water/heat from a power station to heat the poly-tunnels... Perhaps more of this sort of sustainable growing could happen.

The best thing is the waste co2 for growing tomatos

Great!

Well, just to add something else to the mix, I'm not sure I believe they're grown in the UK - I saw a programme a while back about supermarket produce, and new potatoes were being grown in the desert in Egypt and then flown here. I also don't trust Tesco's labelling at all - they've been caught selling beef joints as Topside when actually it wasn't, and they certainly sell Lamb Shoulder Fillets which are actually neck fillets.
By the way, the growing of potatoes and beans in hot countries sounds terrible - but actually turns out to be more environmentally friendly than tomatoes produced in Holland, when all factors are considered.

Egypt does grow new potatoes in the Nile Delta but any time I have bought they have always been labelled as such. Amazingly considering Egypt is 90% desert it is self sufficient in food aside from sugar cane and exports a lot of produce to Europe. Yes I agree Bamboo the way tomatoes and the like are grown in Holland, Spain and Portugal is not environmentally friendly.

I am all in favour of using waste heat for productive purposes. Two of our local distilleries tried to use waste heat, one for greenhouse tomatoes and the other for rearing fish of some kind. Both eventually gave up because they were too small scale to be viable. Now they use cooling towers with electrically driven fans!
You can tell Egyptian and Cypriot potatoes, Bamboo, by the reddish coloured mud on them.

Scotland seed potatoes are exported to Egypt,grown in sand,water & ferterziler mix, and then exported back to Uk

Update: we ate some of the potatoes for dinner tonight. They were firm and fresh, waxy, but we both found them to be rather sweet tasting. Annabella is described as a salad potato. (Salad potatoes in this cold, wet and windy weather - noooo!)

You're right Jiffy, that's exactly what happens - and I recall also something about importing peat from Ireland to aid with the growing, or was it compost, but whatever, the seed pots come from here, the compost from elsewhere, and then it all gets sent back again.
And bulbaholic; mud? What mud, you'd be hard put to find a muddy potato in the supermarkets here, apart from Jerseys when they come in. All the potatoes are pristine, don't even look as if they've been grown in soil at all.

We can get muddy spuds in our local greengrocers but Tesco and the like don't "do" dirty veg....seems customers like things to be clean and sanitized.

Guilty as charged, Whistonlass! I avoid dirty potatoes like the plague - I don't even like potatoes much, and they aggravate my arthritis, so it seems doubly awful to stand at the sink scrubbing them when I'm not even going to eat them, lol.

Well...yes, Bamboo...I can see why you'd avoid the muddy potatoes...and if you have a choice why not go for the ones that are easiest to prepare. Too bad you can't enjoy the spuds...I'd not heard of potatoes aggravating arthritis and the potatoes are such a staple to our menu :(

Doesn't affect everyone, apparently - they're the same family as tomatoes, peppers and aubergines, so if you've trouble with one, you'll have trouble with all. Citrus, I find, is a million times worse, swollen, painful finger joints overnight if I eat an orange, and I do love an orange. Such a joy, getting older...

Arthritis I know what you mean I've got it and some days you wish you didn't have it at all,bent fingers joints that lock and so on
Such joy getting older, i'am still young, not looking foward to getting older

Jiffy, inside our heads we are ALL young!

To ture

Well said MoonGrower !
I've stopped looking in mirrors these days :-/