Sweet potato pre-orders open November 2023. If you would like a heads-up, please join our mailing list.

This variety was first released in 2021.

Wow! We have been waiting for the day to have enough to supply.

These stunning purple fleshed sweet potatoes are a real winner! High in Flavanoids and anthocyanins, which are powerful antioxidants. Purple truly means good health in these deliciously healthy tubers.

Runners sold in sets of 4

The History of Wickedly Purple according from our grower.

Wickedly Purple Sweet Potato
I’ve been cultivating Purple Sweet Potatoes since 1995. While writing a food article on the Chinese community I was gifted 4 Purple Sweet Potatoes , which I grew in my vegetable garden in Johannesburg, selectively breeding the best producing tubers each year. In 2010 we moved to Wickedfood Earth farm in the Magalies Valley, taking my best tubers with me. We started growing on a larger scale in a totally organic environment, and supplying mainly to the health food and speciality organic food outlets. We believe that we were one of the first farmers to be growing Purple Sweet Potatoes outside the Chinese community on a larger scale in South Africa.

Sweet potato is one of the world’s most important food crops in terms of human consumption, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Asia, and the Pacific Islands. It is believed that they were first domesticated more than 5,000 years ago in Latin America. It is an important food crop as all parts of the plant are edible - leaves, roots, and vines. A wide variety of sweet potato exists, with a kaleidoscope of skin and flesh colour, from white to yellow-orange and deep purple.

The Purple Sweet potato has an interesting history. There are 4 varieties recognized in the world, the Stokes Purple® sweet potatoes originating in Stokes County, North Carolina, where it was patented in 2006; and the Okinawan sweet potato, from Japan, being the most commonly known.

The Okinawan sweet potato is very likely the one available in South Africa. It originated from the Aztecs of South America. The Spaniards introduced it to the Philippines and China in the 1500s. It reached Japan in the 1600s, the initial planting being in Okinawa, the southern island of Japan, hence the name.

It was the Chinese immigrants from mainland China, in the 1990s, after the fall of Apartheid, who first brought the Purple Sweet Potato to South Africa, mainly for medicinal purposes. It is strongly believed, by them, that it helps with a number of stomach ailments and longevity. Until the mid 2000s the consumption of Purple Sweet Potatoes in South Africa was limited, to a large extent, to the Chinese community.

The flesh is vibrant purple with some white and violet striations that disappear when cooking. It has a somewhat dry, starchy texture that becomes creamy when cooked and with a mildly sweet taste with notes of chestnut. It is a very versatile vegetable in the kitchen. As with a normal potato, it can be boiled, baked or fried. It makes delicious French fries, and as a baked potato has a distinct sweet nuttiness.