The Gourmandine has been awarded the coveted French quality award ‘Saveur de l’Année 2012’ (‘Taste of the Year 2012’). Once again, French consumers find the Gourmandine to be the tastiest potato in the category potatoes, vegetables and fruit. This culinary variety also received this honour in 2009.
Again, Agrico is extremely pleased with this award, all the more because the appreciation comes from the end-user: the consumer!
De Saveur de l’Année is an independent prize that is offered each year by the French people to products with the highest level of quality. To this end, Monadia - the first consumer interests organisation in France - conducts over 43,000 objective tasting tests, in collaboration with a scientific committee, thousands of consumers and 13 independent laboratories. During this extensive and accurate operation, the attention is focused on the opinion of the most important interest group, i.e. the consumer. Add to that the critical viewpoint of the ‘spoiled’ French consumer and the value of the coveted award is explained.
Assessment
The Gourmandine is judged on 4 criteria, i.e. appearance, aroma, texture and taste. Furthermore, a complete assessment was conducted. On a scale of one to ten, the Gourmandine scored a 7.3 or higher on all of the criteria mentioned. “A potato with a solid structure, that nevertheless melts in your mouth”, “A deliciously full, nut-like flavour”, “an excellent, natural flavour”, “delicious and very versatile”, were qualifications that the participating consumers ascribed to the culinary potato variety.
Recognition
Besides the French packaging company Terre de France-Priméale and Agrico’s French subsidiary Desmazières, general director Jan van Hoogen was also in Paris for the presentation of the ‘Saveur de l’Année 2012’ award: “Agrico is very pleased with this award. Together with our extensive network of (inter)national chain partners, the organisation dedicates itself on a daily basis to offer the end-user, the consumer, the highest level of service. We consider it as a tribute that the consumer has yet again rewarded us with the qualification “Taste of the Year”, says Van Hoogen.
First light of day
The Gourmandine is part of Agrico’s commercial variety package. The company has its own breeding and research company, called ‘Agrico Research” and a large number of trial fields in the Netherlands and abroad. Agrico Research works together with 35 associated private growers and 4 professional breeding stations in the Netherlands, France, Sweden and Austria. Through this dynamic network, the Gourmandine potato also came to be, with the varieties Charlotte and Estima as its cross breeding parents.
Gourmandine, judged tastiest potato of France
During the past five years, the culinary variety has been cultivated for both seed-potatoes as well as for consumption. In the Netherlands, potato growers as well as retail have tested the variety for two years. The testing phase was completed successfully and supported by (inter)national consumer actions, the acreage has more than doubled in both 2009 and 2010. Van Hoogen: “Acreage is still on the rise and this reward is an encouragement to consolidate and to reinforce the variety’s position in Europe. We are now even more capable of convincing consumers of Gourmandine’s qualities and thus persuading them to buy the variety.”
Recognizable
Potato lovers have already found their way to the Gourmandine in stores. Those who are curious and want to get to know this culinary potato variety will have plenty of opportunity to discover the Gourmandine. After all, the Gourmandine packaging will be bearing the striking ‘Gourmandine – Taste of the Year 2012’ sticker for the next few weeks. More information about the Gourmandine can be found at www.gourmandine.info.
In the course of the year 2012 more Gourmandine actions are scheduled.
