Manna Pack Potato Products seeing increased demand

Farm and Ranch Report August 3, 2011 The U.S. dehydrated potato based products of Feed My Starving Children are proving to be very popular in food aid.

Papai: “And because the demand for the Manna Pack Potato products have increased, we have had to move production from one permanent facility to two.”

That is Christine Papai, Food Quality Manager for Feed My Starving Children, or FMSC, a food aid partner of the U.S. Potato Board. Papai says Manna Pack Potato-D is the only product available for food aid that manages diarrhea, a major killer of children around the world. The other formula, Manna Pack Potato-W is for weaning children.

Papai: “Nutrition in the first two years of life is so critical. If a child doesn‘t get proper nutrition in the first two years there could be irreversible effects for them physically and mentally.”

There has been a tremendous increase in demand for the weaning Potato Pack.

Papai: “Just between last year and this year the demand for the weaning formulation went from one-million services to six-million servings. And that is huge and we expect that number to continue to rise year-over-year.”

FMSC utilizes volunteers to package the Manna Packs and some of them are mobile events, like the one Potato Board member Mike Carter and his wife organized in Wisconsin recently.

Carter: “We had over 500 volunteers pack over 201-thousand servings for children.”

And they all contained U.S. dehy.

That’s the U.S. Potato Update. Brought to you by the United States Potato Board, maximizing return on grower investment. I’m Bob Hoff for Northwest Aginfo Net.