Potato Pete

Potato Pete was one of the characters devised by the Ministry of Food to encourage the public to eat more healthily during the war years. Pete was created in order to encourage people to eat more potatoes rather than grains like wheat as these were imported from America whereas the potato was home grown.

In 1941 Walt Disney tried to help the British war effort by sending some vegetable cartoons to the ministry. But Potato Pete and his friend Dr Carrot were already so popular the Disney figures were rejected.

Visitors flooded to the Potato Pete fair in Oxford Street, where you could buy potato stamps to exchange for more potatoes. There was a weekly prize for the greengrocer with the best potato display. Potato Pete appeared in leaflets on growing potatoes and even on the radio, singing his own potato-y songs including one that went:

 'Potatoes new. Potatoes old 

Potato (in a salad) cold…

Enjoy them all including chips

Remembering spuds don’t come in ships.’

Potato Pete also had his own recipe book that showed the public a number of recipes using the humble potato. A copy of Potato Pete's Booklet can be found online here.