Two Farmers Crisps

Two Farmers Crisps

Transcript

00:00Oops, you caught me, sorry. It's one of the country's most popular snacks. We eat thousands of packets every day.

00:09Crisps, we've all got our favourite flavour. Mine's probably haggis and prune, natch.

00:14But did you know it can take decades for a packet of crisps to biodegrade?

00:19Well now a Herefordshire manufacturer has come up with a new packet which is compostable within just six months.

00:25Joan Cummins has been to find out more.

00:28Heavy rain stopped these two farmers harvesting potatoes today,

00:33but it didn't halt the sorting and production of a new Herefordshire export, hand-cooked crisps,

00:40to be sold in what's believed to be the first 100% compostable packaging.

00:46We grow the potatoes here on the farm and we're going to process them here on the farm,

00:50so they're very fresh and low food miles.

00:52Our packets will just disappear in 26 weeks, they're fully compostable,

00:55so once they reach the atmosphere on your home composting,

00:59they will then in 26 weeks disappear back to their natural state, which is water.

01:03For three years the two farmers have been researching and planning locally grown Herefordshire-inspired flavoured crisps,

01:12but they soon realised that the packaging was as important as the contents.

01:17The packet itself is very, very similar to a standard packet.

01:21It looks the same, it feels the same, but it is 100% compostable.

01:25It's probably nearly ten times the price of a standard crisp packet,

01:28which is very difficult obviously to run into.

01:31We're a small start-up business and we can probably try and take a lot of that cost in.

01:36It's all about trying to create a product that's not damaging the environment.

01:42Thousands have joined in a postal for the country over non-recyclable crisp packets.

01:47This food hall who's selling the compostable packaging,

01:50police customers are more environmentally aware than ever.

01:54To us as a business, we think that we need to be supporting suppliers with compostable or recyclable packaging,

02:01so I really hope that our customers will also follow us.

02:04The fact that they were rocked down is probably a very good idea.

02:08They should all be doing it now, shouldn't they?