Chartered accountant Allan Stevenson has been put in charge of promoting the tasty British spud.

The farmer - who has a business degree - has been appointed as chair of the Potato Council Ltd and appointed as a board member of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), the new levy body which came into being in April this year.

The Potato Council is a wholly owned subsidiary of AHDB which works towards making the British potato industry more competitive and helps stimulate use of the GB potato crop in home and export markets.

Mr Stevenson was born into a farming family and spent his early years as a student on the farm before moving into the world of business and finance.

He has a business degree from Edinburgh University and is a qualified chartered accountant whose early career involved a number of positions as marketing director, commercial director and managing director for various food service, engineering and manufacturing companies. Allan then became group finance director, at EC Harris Group, a global consultancy firm in real estate capital projects.

Mr Stevenson has several current positions, primarily as director of his own arable farming company, Luffness Mains, in East Lothian, which he has been involved in for over 23 years. The company specialises in high quality pre-pack potatoes for Tesco, and was awarded the Tesco\Greenvale Scottish Potato Grower of the year in 2007.