08/31/07 U.S. Potato Board highlights accomplishments

Farm and Ranch August 31, 2007 The United States Potato Board shared the results of its Fiscal Year 2007 demand building strategies at its recent summer meeting held in Madison, Wisconsin. The USPB uses grower assessments to fund each of its programs, all designed to increase potato consumption. One program area is the Nutrition Campaign. The board says messaging from that campaign reached 233 million consumers this past year. The Foodservice program has been engaged for a second year running with a custom seminar held by the Potato Board at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, California. Twenty-six executive research and development chefs from leading chains, representing over 32-thousand restaurants attended the event. As a result new potato items have been added to the menus at such chains as Chili's and the Cheesecake Factory. Retail partners in Fresh potato promotion achieved a 1.3 percent increase in volume and increased sales revenue of over 10 percent by implementing the USPB's best practices. In the Frozen program, seven restaurant chains in China and Mexico switched to U.S. frozen products. In Japan, South Korea, China ASEAN and Mexico, 90 new foodservice menu items were launched and 26 new retailers and nine new channels began carrying or using U.S. frozen potato products. Other accomplishments include continued growth in the dehy sector and new buyers from Thailand and the Philippines importing U.S. chip-stock. That's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today! Good health tomorrow! I'm Bob Hoff on the Northwest Ag Information Network.