5-27 IAT Healthy Fries

 During the recent Potato Expo - our aginformation network’s Greg Martin caught up with Datassential Director of Research Maeve Webster explained how the universally-accepted French fry is suffering right now due to many issues - including the popularity and focus on sweet potato fries. Webster says that doesn’t need to be the case - though - because regular fries are still very appealing to consumers…”It doesn’t matter how much you talk about health, consumers only eat so healthy. They still love to have french fries. Maybe not as often as they were the  before but they do love them. So how do you take an item that has been around for so long and that people love, but operators are starting to look away from because it is not that next new thing?”

Webster says 50-percent more operators currently are using the term hand-cut on their menu versus 2008 - mostly driven by French fries. She says it’s just one way to revive a category that has been on the menu for a while and create something that’s familiar - but new again.