More Opportunities for Potatoes

More Opportunities for Potatoes. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

When I was growing up I really had no idea that there was more than one variety of potato. To this day, many people still don’t. Small, large, brown skin, red skin, gold...and the insides can be a myriad of colors. Maeve Webster, the Director for Datassential a consumer group says these varieties are important to building the industry.

WEBSTER: The next thing we want to look at are the ethnic opportunities for potatoes, and there are many. Potatoes are indigenous to a huge number of cultures worldwide. There are a lot of different ethnic cuisines that potatoes can fit in. 74% of consumers are interested in Spanish food.

Tapas have been a hot item these last few years. Webster talks about other ethnic foods.

WEBSTER: You’ve got 61% of consumers are interested in themed South American cuisine for empanadas. Now empanadas is kind of an unusual term for most consumers but what is it really? It’s a turnover. Right? It’s a savory turnover. We see very strong numbers for things like Argentinian cuisine. Brazilian. Peruvian. And again all of which incorporate potatoes to some degree.

She says 25% of consumers want to see more potatoes used as appetizers. Webster caps off her talk with some words about French Fries.

WEBSTER: French Fries have been around for a very long time. They have an extremely high penetration. And they are suffering a bit right now because of the focus on sweet potato fries which have taken a little bit of the thunder.

We’ll wrap it up it tomorrow.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.