Potato News from Northern America

The Idaho Potato Commission (IPC) recently updated its website to make it easier than ever for consumers to spend quality time online with Idaho® potatoes.

TOMRA’s Common User Interface (CUI) - already applied in the Halo and the Field Potato Sorter - received this year´s International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) at a gala ceremony in Seattle, US, on the 22nd August.

In a new Ranker poll, the potato tops the competition as the peoples’ #1 favorite vegetable. As such, potatoes hold an important position on foodservice menus as a foundation for profitable snacks, appetizers, side dishes, and entrées.

The new season’s fingerling potato crop looks outstanding for Heyburn, Idaho’s Southwind Farms. The company reports excellent quality, consistent sizing, and good yields.

Ideal weather conditions last Thursday helped draw one of the best crowds in recent years to the Field Day of the Northern Plains Potato Growers Association (NPPGA)

The United States Potato Board (USPB) School Nutrition Program has officially launched to reach the 55.5 million strong, and growing, school students who are part of the “Salad Generation.”

A UK company that manufactures machines that help restaurants make fresh-cut french fries is launching into the North American market with a small plant in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

At the IFT15 Expo in Chicago, Innova Market Insights said it best, clean label is no longer a trend—it’s the rule.

RPE Inc. is introducing Oddball Organics™, a new brand for organic potatoes that do not fit the standard.

This year's major news of the Texas A&M Potato Breeding Program is a new early potato variety called Reveille Russet, a russet baking potato headed to the fresh market.

Late blight has become widespread in Idaho and is called the worst Idaho late blight outbreak since 1998.

The Prince Edward Island Potato Industry '... hasn't focused on the belly aching, financial or emotional challenges...' resulting from the potato tampering incidents, that are still unresolved. 'Instead food safety has continued to be the highest priority ...' says Greg Donald, general manager of the P.E.I. potato board.

Kraft Heinz says it is cutting about 2,500 jobs in the United States and Canada as part of its plan to slash costs after the food companies combined.

Heat and Control, Inc. will display the latest examples of its range of equipment for weighing, packaging, product inspection, seasoning application, controls, and processing in Booth C-3627 at Pack Expo Las Vegas, Sept. 28 – 30

The latest Focus on Potato webcast, titled “Best Management Tactics and Fungicide Resistance in Early Blight and Brown Spot” highlights the importance of measures to mitigate fungicide resistance, particularly when applied and repeatedly used on a single site.

Snyder’s - Lance, Inc. Reports Results for Second Quarter 2015

A fire chief credits quick action by employees for a short interruption of work at a McCain potato processing plant in Plover, Wisconsin.

The National Potato Council awards its 2015-16 Academic Scholarship to Shunping Ding, a PhD. student in Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.