Tayto Factory Tour!

Visitors Pass

During the Easter holidays I was able to go home for a few days. I took time out from my studies to attend my best friend’s wedding where I had the honour of being best man. Although I was busy helping things come together for the wedding I had potato on the brain. It’s interesting how I’m constantly reminded of this potato blog, what with home cooked dinners, savoury snacks and fast food places everywhere. It was no wonder that whilst eating a packet of crisps that I had an idea – I must visit the Tayto Factory!

Set in the historic village of Tandragee, the Tayto castle is home to Northern Ireland’s biggest and wealthiest crisp factory. I was able to send an email at short notice on the 11^th of April and by sheer luck I secured a last minute place on a tour around the castle on the 12^th of April.

Unfortunately I realised when I got there that I was not allowed to take either a camera or notepad into the factory for hygiene reasons. However I was able to retain most of the information in my head and jot it down when I got back to my car.

After being used as an English military base during WWII, The castle itself passed hands to the Hutchinson family in 1956. Mr Hutchinson who had visited America during the war came across ‘the crisp’ and liked it so much that he decided to introduce the new phenomenon to Northern Ireland. It was an immediate success. The company grew and grew and today turns over £150 million per year. It even has its own secret recipe room where the company’s top secret Cheese and Onion flavour is made. No one knows but Mr Hutchinson and his selected few what the recipe is (although there are over 1,000 employees). I learned these and a few other facts during my visit which I’ll let you in on...

·        The factory had 8 huge potato storing bays which can contain up to 4 tonnes of potatoes. The main potato suppliers are 4 farmers from the North of Ireland and 2 from the Republic.

·        The potatoes are brought into the factory between July and October and are stored under huge cooling blankets in the dark to keep the potatoes fresh. The blankets ‘trick the potatoes’ in to believing they’re still underground which stops them from going green.

·        The factory uses only Lady Clare and Lady Rosetta potatoes as they feel they’re the best types of potatoes for turning into crisps. Both types of crisps are waxy and once cut very finely they do not break apart.

·         After the potatoes have been through a machine which washes them they are moved on to a peeling machine where they are skinned.

·        The potatoes are then dropped into a container of water to remove the starch where they fall to the bottom to be moved along for slicing. The smaller/average potatoes are cut to 1.2mm and are passed along to the fryer where they remain for 3.5 minutes. The larger potatoes are cut to 1.8mm per slice and are fried for 11 minutes.

·        The thicker slices once fried are a lot more crunchier and filling and are so moved to another part of the factory where they are flavoured and sent out in more expensive packets such as ‘Tayto Rough Cuts’ etc.

·        The thinner slices are used for all other standard packets of Tayto crisps.

·        The Tayto snacks we get in Northern Irish stores such as ‘Tayto Rollers’ and ‘Tayto Bikers’ are corn sacks made from maze.

·        After all crisps are flavoured and evenly divided into packets, they are sent out to be delivered to shops around the country.

The tour was both enlightening and educational and I would certainly encourage any crisp lover to go visit a crisp factory if you can. You learn so much and you may be given lots of freebees to take home like I did!