Accountant tucks in to potato role

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 TescoGreenvale Scottish Potato Grower
of the year in 2007.