I know not everyone agrees with my stance on the importance of varietal labeling. One thing I think we can all agree on is that we need to help culinarians feel confident putting potatoes on their menus. The potato industry must find ways to ensure other side dishes don’t push potatoes out.
HZPC formed the Potato Glory Culinary Council about three years ago. This group of leaders in the culinary and foodservice industry act as guides and consultants for us on what culinarians need from potatoes in their kitchens. As we’ve worked with them to share our knowledge about varietal differences in consistency, texture, cooking types and flavours, we discovered we need to bridge a gap.
Culinarians need an efficient way to access information on how to get the most out of potatoes on their menus.
Our chief commercial director, Herman Verveld, is a passionate wine enthusiast. He uses an app on his phone that allows him to scan a wine label and he instantly knows everything about that wine. It offers details about the winery it’s from, its flavour notes and textures, how it’s best paired with meals, average prices, ratings and more. These wine apps have millions of users.
Herman suggested we build an app to do something similar for potatoes to what the app on his phone does for wine – so we did!
Of course, we don’t have varietal labeling on packages yet, and we can’t have users take a picture of a potato since what’s on the outside doesn’t determine what’s on the inside, so we refocused on “how do we help culinarians be more successful?”
Our app, Pick the Perfect Potato™, offers cooking techniques and dispels common myths. Users have access to the minds of nationally renowned culinary professionals as our Culinary Council members post tips on potato selection, ingredient pairings, and menu strategy. Of course, it offers varietal selection, guiding users to pick the perfect potato for their recipes.
In January, we introduced this app at the Potato Expo in Austin. We rolled it out to partners, competitors, industry, and commodity boards. The overall response was resoundingly positive.
Now we are looking for collaboration. We want to make sure we’re offering exactly the value users need to increase engagement. I encourage you to download the app, look through it, and let me know what you think. You can use the feedback form in the app or reach out to me directly.
The ultimate goal here is to increase use of potatoes on menus. Could we do something like this on an industry wide basis? Let’s work together.
