The story of Just Crisps

The Story Behind ‘Just Crisps’

Have you ever browsed the Avanti West Coast food menu and wondered where their tasty train snacks come from? Just Crisps is one of Avanti’s food suppliers, ensuring their onboard offerings have the best snacks for train travel.

Introducing Wade Lane Farm, home of Just Crisps

Welcome to Wade Lane Farm – the home of Just Crisps and our cold pressed extra virgin rapeseed oil, Just Oil. The Trent Valley line borders the farm, so as you travel north you can look to your right and see a good part of it, including the 25-acre lake we use to irrigate our crops. The lake was formed due to subsidence when coal was “retreat mined” for the now-demolished Rugeley Power Station which stood on the other side of the tracks.

Just Crisps’ farm owners, The Froggatt’s, recently celebrated 100 years of farming, having arrived in 1922.  The Froggatt’s farm is located near Rugeley Trent Valley station, so the railway has always been part of the farm, forming a delightful link between Avanti and Just Crisps long before our partnership. We often check our watches when we hear the Avanti trains punctually pass by on the hour.

Anthony is the fourth generation to run the farm, he and Becky’s children will become the next stewards of the farm when he retires, although there is no such thing really as a retired family farmer. Richard and Sue, Anthony’s parents, still work on the farm helping look after the sheep. 

There are around 150 sheep on the farm, a small flock of fine Welsh Mules. The flock was ten times the size but in 2001 like many pastoral farms up and down the UK, Foot and Mouth disease raged, and a generation of work was wiped out overnight. It was this seismic event that led Antony to diversify and having grown rapeseed for a number of years he read in the paper that “Cold-Pressed”, “Extra Virgin” rapeseed oil was going to be a top ten food trend.  So having bought a press and bottling equipment he produced his first bottles of his British alternative to olive oil. He started to supply local farm shops – including the Canalside Farm shop which is also next to the Trent Valley line – near Great Heyward, shortly before the Shugborough tunnel. Sales took off and his sister Sarah set up a team freshly pressing and bottling oil all year round in a converted farm building.

The creation of Just Crisps, one of the best train snacks

After Just Oil won multiple Great Taste awards, British chefs got on board promoting its use for dressing, baking, and roasting. Anthony started looking for even more uses for the oil and ways to diversify the farm. He wanted to produce high-quality food and connect with his customers. The farm has always grown potatoes, so it was a natural step to make potato crisps. The sandy gravel earth of the Trent Valley lends itself to growing chipping potatoes, such as Taurus or Lady Rosetta varieties and Cold-Pressed rapeseed oil has a high smoke point so it's ideal for frying. This use of two homegrown ingredients working in harmony to produce what we like to think of as the ultimate British crisps is unique - no other crisp manufacturer does this.

Producing the crisps on the farm helps reduce our carbon footprint, something that Avanti West Coast is also working towards, through lower food miles – many other crisp brands use imported sunflower oil, or potatoes from farm afield. We also create electricity to help run the farm with solar panels and any waste oil is converted into biodiesel to fuel lorries and tractors. Anthony is proud of the environmental stewardship of the farm – from planting miles of hedgerow, covering crops to feed overwintering birds, and minimal tillage where possible - knowing that he will be passing it on in a better place to the next generation.

Learn more about your rail food aboard your next Avanti service

If you care to scan the QR code on the back of the pack of any of our crisps (why not use the free Avanti Wi-Fi) you can watch a video of us making the crisps.      We use the whole crop of potatoes, these are thickly sliced, with skins on, before being hand cooked, seasoned and bagged all within 10 minutes - ready for you to enjoy aboard your next Avanti service. We are one of a handful of crisp producers to be recognised by the Great Taste Awards as a Great Taste Producer. We hope you enjoy our savoury snacks on the train and thank you for supporting a family farm along the Trent Valley line.