Potato Promotions Pt 1
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. Everyone in business to make a living wants to sell their products, including farmers, and promoting your products can be key.
But, Washington State Potato Commission president, Chris Voigt says our growers have an indirect market …
VOIGT … “Over 90% of what we grow is processed products. So, it’s going to be a tater tot or French fry or hashbrown patties or potato chips. And so, it’s not like MacDonald’s is going put a Washington Potato logo on their product.”
Our potato growers, Voigt says, take a rather unique approach to promoting what they produce …
VOIGT -26 = 25 … “A lot of what we grow are an ingredient and so it doesn’t really make sense to spend a ton of money promoting Washington potatoes. And so, what our growers decided about ten years ago, through a strategic planning process, is, you now, we’ll still promote Washington potatoes, but let’s take a bigger chunk of that and actually just promote agriculture. Let’s educate the public about food and agriculture and what it really takes to get food on the table. Because if we don’t tell our story, someone else is going to tell it for us and they’re going to get it wrong.”
So, Voigt says that led to a creative group effort to tell ag’s story …
VOIGT … “We work with several other ag groups and created a TV show called “Washington Grown” that’s widely seen throughout the state on both commercial and public television.”
Tune in tomorrow for more on potato promotions and why telling agriculture’s story is the best path.
