[grinling]

Tesco will be putting blue stickers on potato bags from flood hit farmers in Lincolnshire and the Eastern counties. Might not be smooth, but still good.
We still have a lot of land under water and 1 farmer is still waiting to have flood water pumped off after the river breached.

[New shoot]

Well that is a positive change in thinking    Don't just reject the crop as it isn't picture perfect.  Market it and support our farmers 

[Goosegirl]

Good for Tesco's! If anyone can't stand knobbly or wobbly veg they need a good talking-to! It only takes a minute to cut them off with a sharp knife then peel as usual.

[mumofstig]

It's been a weird year for potatoes, earlies were poor because of drought, so some had raised scabby patches.
Mains have had to put up with too much rain and possibly flooding on some farms, leading to swollen lenticels, which can look very strange and off-putting if you haven't seen them before - so well done Tesco for explaining to customers.
Of course the other thing to bear in mind, is that if all the rough-looking ones are rejected this year, there won't be enough to get us through 'til next year....

[rowlandwells]

yes I have to say its a pleasure reading your replies in support of our local farmers and not forgetting Tesco for doing there bit to most people see farmers as riding round in there range rovers and that mite be so for some but for the majority of farmer and growers it must be a very worrying time as most of the autumn sown crops are either under water our washed away and will need to be re-sown at double the cost per acre come spring

and as you know if cereal crops like wheat become in short supply it will drive the price of bread flour up same goes for barley and rape crops and its well known that autumn sown cereal crops produce more per acre  than spring sown and then there's the brassicas growers could a cauliflower costing around 70p go to something like £2.00 or more ?

could be growing rice be an option 

[mrs bouquet]

Morrisons do a selection of misshapen veg.   I haven't  seen the blue labels spuds in Tesco, but their caulis were 29p last week !    Mrs Bouquet

[grinling]

most farmers haven't sown or even ploughed fields up here. spring wheat prices have already risen.
It will be interesting if Walkers cut production like last time.

[jezza]

Hello most of the big super markets dictate the price of all it's products so they don't actually support farmers or growers when I worked in a market garden we grew crisp lettuce weighing 23 ounces cut it  all 2000 boxes were rejected by a moron at the supermarket because they were too big  he only wanted 3 ounces lettuce  super markets  more likey trying to put them out of buisness jezza

[grinling]

Jezza, supermarkets do expect produce of a certain standard, but so do Walkers crisps, also Lincoln. Not all potatoes have been harvested this year, water has only just cleared off the field behind me.
Supermarkets can either buy and sell what farmers have or not sell at all.

[New shoot]

I think there has been a shift towards being more accepting of 'wonky' produce. 

There is more to do, but the fact that the thread opened with a comment about Tesco and the fact that they were buying less than perfect looking potatoes, stickering them to explain why and putting them out on sale, is a move in the right direction.  I have homegrown spuds stored in the shed, but if not, I would make a point of buying some of those blue stickered ones