The Jersey Royal Company is committed through its Corporate Social Responsibility policy to ensuring that visitors, islanders and, in particular, local school children are aware of the Island’s agricultural heritage and the benefits of having an active social and rural landscape.

GENUINE JERSEY ROYAL GROWING COMPETITION – its origins

In 2007 the Jersey Royal Company launched an island-side competition to see which primary school could grow the heaviest weight of Jersey Royals.

The competition has grown in popularity and number of participants each year and in 2010 there were 191 classes entered which is more than double the number that were involved in 2007.

The campaign is supported by the Genuine Jersey Products Association (www.genuinejersey.com) and the States of Jersey Health Promotion Unit (www.gov.je/health).

The key aims are to:

• Increase awareness of healthy eating
• Involve youngsters in growing their own food
• Educate future generations about the provenance of the Jersey Royal

The competition is designed to be a fun, hands-on challenge which gives young children a better understanding of how food is produced, where it comes from and to learn about Jersey’s local food culture.

The Competition

Schools are challenged to grow the heaviest crop of potatoes and in addition are judged separately on the display of class work carried out during the competition.

The Company provides each school with a comprehensive pack of ideas and teaching aides to prevent the activity becoming an additional burden. Project work ideas are aimed at primary school children from rising fives to 11 year olds.

Competition statistics

The competition is structured in such a way that schools can enter a class, a year group or the entire school depending on the take up by teaching staff.

• In 2007 1,875* pupils took part from 75 classes
• In 2008 2,575* pupils took part from 103 classes
• In 2009 2,950* pupils took part from 117 classes
• In 2010 4,775* pupils took part from 191 classes
• In 2011 5,300* pupils took part from 212 classes

(*working on an average of 25 pupils per class)

The Growing Kit

Each class receives a growing kit which includes seed potatoes, a container, compost, fertiliser and teaching aides.

The Teacher’s Pack

The teaching pack includes suggestions on activities, factsheets and project work ideas.
The project work ideas cover many aspects of the teaching curriculum – science, mathematics, history, geography, English, music, design and technology and art and craft.

Click HERE to see the Teacher’s pack 　

Jersey Branch of the Chartered Institute of Marketing – Awards Ceremony 2009

The Jersey Royal Company won the category for Best PR Campaign and was highly commended for Marketing Achievement on a Small Budget for its entry detailing the success of the Schools’ competition.

The Company provides each school with a comprehensive pack of ideas and teaching aides to prevent the activity becoming an additional burden. Project work ideas are aimed at primary school children from rising fives to 11 year olds.

Judges comments stated that the Best PR Campaign category had the largest number of submissions. JRC was complimented for demonstrating “real passion in its planning, design and execution, and clever engagement with the local community at grass roots level to support a very local subject matter”. In addition the judging panel stated that, “the results achieved on a very small investment is rather astounding”.

William Church of the Jersey Royal Company seen here receiving the Best PR Campaign award from Marketing guru, Paul Fifield and then pictured enjoying the moment with colleague, Johnny Perchard.

Click HERE to see the winning entry

Feedback

“The competition is one of the focuses of the school year. The whole school is involved. Under the guidance of the school caretaker (who knows a lot more about potatoes than I do), the children do the planting and look after their plants.”
Chris Jones, head teacher, St Lawrence Primary School


“The children’s response to the project has been brilliant. They are town children and most of them don’t think twice about where food actually comes from...
This project is great because it teaches the children what they are eating and they get to learn about the whole process, from planting and growing to harvesting and cooking their own produce...
Agriculture is a very important part of the community and this helps raise their awareness to what we do as an island.
We were able to use the competition in our efforts to get a Healthy School Qualification...
All the children love the project and have already been asking when it’s time to plant the potatoes again.”
James Speight, head teacher, Rouge Boullion School


“We always enjoy the competition – it’s very well organised and the organisers are positive and helpful...
The children love it. We’re able to do other related things in the curriculum. We went on a trip to a farm and we have also started a gardening club. There is always follow-up work we can do with the project.”
Janet Barry, head teacher, St Luke’s Primary School


“We always enjoy the competition – it’s very well organised and the organisers are positive and helpful...
“We love the programme. I have no negative comments. The resources are great – clear and helpful to the children. It really gets the children to learn in an enjoyable way.”
Claire Ahier, head teacher, Springfield School


“We always enjoy the competition – it’s very well organised and the organisers are positive and helpful...
“We incorporate the competition into the school syllabus; for example, in maths the children make graphs and learn to measure and weigh. In humanities they tie it into geography; they learn about different types of potatoes around the world, and in literacy they write poems. They do drawings and various artwork. We have a display about the competition with all their different work from the different subjects. It’s a brilliant buzz – the children absolutely love it. It teaches them about the island and farming, which is so important to Jersey.”
Chris Jones, head teacher, St Lawrence Primary School


“We always enjoy the competition – it’s very well organised and the organisers are positive and helpful...
“There are no barriers to the needs or capabilities of pupils and our focus was on using the activity as a sensory experience for the children. The children went outside and felt the soil beneath their fingers and the different textures of the plants. They used an interactive computer system – “Clicker Book” – to put their thoughts across and it was obvious they enjoyed being part of a challenge they could easily access and participate in.”
Jenny Noel, teaching assistant, Mont a l’Abbe School

The Media Competition

All of the different media outlets were invited to grow a bucket of Jersey Royals for the first time in 2009, with the clear aim of raising awareness of the competition throughout the island and at the same time to have a bit of fun.

The response has been enthusiastic, with Puffin’s Plaice, the Jersey Evening Post, Channel 103, BBC Radio Jersey, Channel Television, Alisdair Crosby of Business Brief and Gallery magazine all having taken part.

“I never thought I could have so much fun with potatoes!
We had listeners checking out the progress of ‘my’ plant on the studio webcam and when it wasn’t in the studio it was blocking out the light in the newsroom, much to the annoyance of the news team. Many is the time when a guest in the studio would remark ‘good grief, so that’s the famous potato plant’.
I miss my plant (but not the spuds – they were rubbish) and would I go through the whole process again? – Definitely!” (Peter Mac, 2009).

Peter Mac (presenting live on air) is pictured here watching the proceeds of his bucket being sorted at the ‘Grand weigh-in’ in 2010, held at the RJA&HS.

Click HERE to hear the potato song popularised by Peter over the last couple of years

Carly Lockhart, Jersey Evening Post, who grew the winning media entries in both 2009 and 2010 is photographed here on the left with William Church of the Jersey Royal Company and, on the right, receiving her prize and certificate in 2010 from Chief Minister, Terry Le Sueur.

“We were thrilled to win the competition after many months of nurturing our bumper crop. There was no real secret to our method – just plenty of sunlight, water and the odd word of encouragement. We didn’t expect to grow so many spuds (21) nor did we anticipate beating the other media teams by so much. But, of course, it was the taking part that mattered and we had a lot of fun.” (Carly Lockhart, 2009).

“I missed the chance to enter the competition in 2009, so was delighted to get involved in 2010. My son helped me and we thought that we had a winning recipe using ‘organic fertiliser’ supplied from our pet rabbit, but alas it was not to be! We will definitely be back in 2011” (Alasdair Crosby, 2010)

The Constable’s competition

Introduced in 2010 for the first time, the aim of the competition was to further raise awareness of the competition and to encourage interaction between the Constables as ‘fathers of the parishes’ and their local primary schools.

9 of the 12 Constables took up the challenge and the winner was John Gallichan of Trinity with a total weight of 1,497.3g from 31 tubers (pictured below receiving his award from Chief Minister Le Sueur).

The winning number of tubers was 37 by Ken Vibert MBE of St Ouen who, with previous growing experience has vowed to come back even stronger next time around, and hopes to take the top spot in both categories.