[Packs of Two Farmers’ crisps on the production line]
[Two Farmers’ crisps being packed]
Sean Mason (interview): “This is 100% cellulose film. It’s the only fully compostable crisp packet that we know of. This took us four years to develop and we’re now on to our third generation and we’re actually trying a fourth generation and trying to extend shelf life. Whatever you do with this packet, it will break down, it will dissolve back into water, carbon dioxide and biomass.”
[Two Farmers’ potato fields at their Herefordshire farm]
[Potato harvester harvesting potatoes]
[Driver’s cab, as farmer drives the harvester]
[Potatoes being loaded onto the trailer from the harvester]
[Farmers and co-founders of Two Farmers Mark Green and Sean Mason walking through a potato field]
Mark Green (interview): “We’re growing lots of crops on our farm. Potatoes, cereals, beetroot and energy crops, but what we try to do is farm all of these intensively but at the same time we want to be environmentally friendly and sustainable in our farming business. So, since early 2000s we’ve been looking at our soils and our cropping and how we can bring the two together to look after our soils and actually make sustainable farming with the intensive potato crop like this one here.”
[Farmers and operatives sorting potatoes that have come from the farm, throwing away rocks and other unwanted debris]
[Potatoes on the sorting production line]
[Potatoes after they have been cleaned]
[Two Farmers’ anaerobic digestor plant]
[Mark Green walking on the anaerobic digestor plant]
Mark Green (interview): “Any waste that we produce on the farm comes here. So, in our clamps behind us we grow maize on the farm. We take chicken muck from the chicken production on the farm, we’ve got waste fruit off the farm, we’ve got grass which was grown on the farm, and all of this is collected here, and there’s also waste crisps from the production and waste potatoes from the farm, all come here and they go to this feeder behind me where it is macerated up and it then ends up in this giant tank here which is the anaerobic digestor, what we call the digestor.”
[Various silage clamps part of an anaerobic digestor plant]
[Silage clamp with waste products including grass and berries]
[Mark Green inspecting maize in the maize silage clamp]
[Liquid digestate which is produced by the anaerobic digestor plant]
Mark Green (interview): “In there, there are lots of microorganisms that break down all this material that we put in, everything off the farm, all our waste, break it down and produces methane gas. That methane gas then travels to an engine, it runs the engine, the engine then generates the electric, which we take out to the farm. What we don’t use goes to the national grid.”
[Inside the Two Farmers crisp production facility]
[Crisps being fried]
[Crisps being dragged along the production line]
[Flavoring machine adding seasoning to the friend crisps]
[Louis Bedwell walking in a park]
Louis Bedwell (interview): “The food industry has had such a difficult time over the last four years. We’ve had the pandemic, we’ve had the war in Ukraine, we’ve had huge inflation in ingredients costs, and I think cost is such a huge factor in the speed in which businesses can really transform and move towards something which is climate friendly. I think over the next few years we’ll see sustainability rise back up the agenda as business’ revenue and their margins stabilises, but for now unfortunately I think sustainability has taken a back seat but it’s the businesses who choose to prioritise sustainability who will be really competitive in years to come.”
[Farmland owned by Two Farms in Herefordshire]
[Tractor and founders of Two Farmers Mark Green and Sean Mason walking beside a potato field]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.