Lamb Weston looking at Maine, but not touching

Potato processing giant Lamb Weston has no immediate plans to develop a facility in Maine, although the company continues to watch economic and agricultural activity in the state.

“We have been monitoring the opportunities for Lamb Weston’s potential in Maine for 10 years,” Stephanie Childs, spokeswoman for ConAgra Foods, said Wednesday from the company’s headquarters in Omaha, Neb. “This is a routine matter of business and we are always on the lookout for quality production.”

Representatives of the company were in Aroostook County last fall, looking at sites on the old Loring Air Force Base, now operating as the Loring Development Authority.

Nine years ago, Lamb Weston’s interest in expanding into Maine was high enough that the company purchased an option on 150 acres at Loring, but that option has long expired.

“Lamb Weston has no presence in New England,” Carl Flora, president and CEO of the Loring Development Authority, said. “At the time they were looking at building their market in the Northeast.”

All consideration stopped the next year when a variety of economic and cultural factors affected the food industry in general and potato consumption in particular.

Should Lamb Weston decide to develop a potato processing facility in northern Maine, it could only be good news for local producers, Flora said.

“It would be tremendous for the potato industry in Maine,” he said. “It would probably mean an additional 10,000 acres of potatoes to support a plant like that.”

Meeting that need, according to an official in the industry, would not be a problem and would likely represent a shift in planting practices rather than placing new acreage in production.