A TOP North Yorkshire food brand has joined forces with Comic Relief to raise £500,000 for Red Nose Day 2005 on March 11.

McCain, whose head office is based in Scarborough, is one of seven official partners helping the charity.

The company has launched a new limited edition pack of its highly successful Smiles product to highlight its support, with a little help from Doon MacKichan of Celebrity Fame Academy and Smack The Pony fame, and it has included the Comic Relief name on other packs across its range to support the charity.

McCain's support will also revolve around putting the spud to work in unusual ways, in line with this year's Red Nose Day theme, which is centred around transforming yourself or doing something different to raise money for a day, to help transform someone else's life forever.

Harnessing "potato power" to power unusual gadgets and model cars, and using the common spud to make potato printing masterpieces, are two of the ideas that McCain has lined up to raise smiles and funds.

Jane White, McCain's assistant communications manager, said "We are putting the potato to work. McCain and Comic Relief will be teaching youngsters how to use potatoes to create pieces of art using Potato Print, and we'll also be throwing down a challenge to schools to use potatoes for power."

For more information about McCain's support of Comic Relief go to www.rednoseday/mccain.com from Tuesday.

Updated: 12:01 Friday, January 28, 2005