Potato-Friendly Salad Bars For School Cafeterias

The Colorado Potato Administrative Committee Executive Director Jim Erlich says the plan of CPAC is to purchase 100 potato-friendly salad bars for school cafeterias over the next three years. This, is following the United States Potato Board's challenge to the potato industry to donate 3,000 salad bars over the next three years in an effort to bring more potatoes in creative and fun ways to the Salad Bar generation which populates K-12 schools right now.

Erlich shares their first step was to build interest with schools.

Erlich: "We wanted to talk to the schools first so we had a good list of what was needed.

One of the things I did was to go to the School Nutritionist Association. They have an annual conference in the summer and I went to the meeting in Loveland. I spoke to food directors that were there and asked them to get on the list that United Fresh has. We're also advertising in their bi-monthly newsletter, so schools know that this is available to them. We have had a few schools contact us already."

He says that once they have a list of schools who are interested in having the potato-friendly salad bars, they will be asking the state's potato industry to participate by purchasing these salad bars for schools.