Task force created to help ensure market acceptability of new potatoes

Washington Ag Today July 2, 2010 Acting on an idea originated in the Pacific Northwest, the U.S. potato industry has created the Potato Processing Task Force. Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission, says the panel was formed because of a costly experience.

Voigt: “Sort of the whole reason for doing this Bob is we suffered a big hit. We invested millions of dollars in what we thought was going to be the next great potato. Then some of our restaurant, food service providers, said it didn‘t meet their quality parameters. So, we wasted millions of dollars in this effort among the states in the country.”

The Potato Processing Task Force includes growers, seed growers, potato breeders and restaurants such as McDonald‘s.

Voigt: “And we bring them together in one room and we set our priorities and we look at all the varieties and we all vote on which ones go forward so we can avoid that problem of investing all this money and then it getting rejected again. We are involving the restaurants right up front so they have an investment in this process so we know we won‘t make that same mistake twice.”

Voigt says the task force is already at work examining the nutrient profiles of some of the potato varieties in the pipeline, which is one of the pieces of the pie looked at in developing new varieties.

That’s Washington Ag Today. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today. Good health tomorrow. I’m Bob Hoff on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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