The Culinary Institute Of America

For the past decade, the United States Potato Board has sponsored a Potatoes Innovation Seminar at the Culinary Institute of America. Fourteen chefs attended the event which represented more than 9800 retail locations.
USPB Global Food Service Marketing Manager Susan Weller shares that all of the participants rated the event as excellent or good and came away with new ideas for menu items using potatoes. Weller says that new this year was the opportunity for the chefs to try many different potato products.
Weller: “Actually this year they got work this year with not only the variety of fresh potatoes — so whether they were blues, they were purples, they were reds, they were yellow flesh, they were fingerings, they were small, babies. They also got to use frozen potato products as well as dehydrated. That was something that was new that was added on to the whole seminar was showing the whole range of potatoes available to them. In some operations, they may not be able to use fresh. So we wanted to be sure that we didn’t want to miss any opportunities to ensure that they got potatoes on their menu — whether it is fresh, whether it was frozen or a dehydrated product.”