Previously an independent non-departmental public body, it has been a division of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board since 1 April 2008.
Its main base is at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire, and there is a Scottish office in Newbridge in Midlothian and an experimental station (SBEU) in Sutton Bridge in Lincolnshire.
With the passing of the Potato Marketing Scheme 1933 (Modification and Suspension) Order 1939, all of the board's activities were suspended.
In 2005, a report by Daniel Lewis from the Efficiency in Government Unit (jointly sponsored by the Centre for Policy Studies and the Economic Research Council), called The Essential Guide to British Quangos,[7] looked into the role of quangos in British politics and potential efficiency savings that could have been made.
[8][9] In 2008, it was merged with other similar levy-funded organisations to form the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), where it operates as a specialist division focused on the potato industry.