Shifting consumer habits have potato chip companies making smaller bags, requiring smaller chips and therefore smaller potatoes.
Great things come in small packages may just be the idea the potato chip industry is following. As consumers are asking for more “snackable” options, potato chip companies are responding with smaller bags and they’re now asking farmers for smaller potatoes for those bags.
Most chip processing plants were built when “big potatoes filled larger bags, with very few name brands on them, and everything worked very easy,” says Mark VanOostrum, field supply manager with Beeton, Ont.-based WD Potato Ltd. “Now everybody has their own brand and everybody’s trying to differentiate in the marketplace — and the small bag market is expected to continue to grow.”
In the next five years, the branded potato chip business expects a 50 per cent of growth in the flat chip business coming from the small bag market, VanOostrum told the audience at the Ontario Potato Conference in Guelph, Ont. in March.
Smaller bags require smaller chips, and to make smaller chips, the potatoes must be smaller, VanOostrum says. In the past, potatoes being shipped to chip factories could be as large as four to 4.5 inches, but factories are now requesting a portion of their potatoes be two to three inches long. For farmers in southern Ontario, the potato chip factories in Cambridge, Toronto and New York are now all substantial small bag markets.
For farmers this is a challenge though. The potato industry has always been based on weight, with contracts signed depending on size. Farmers have focused on getting large yields by growing big potatoes in order to receive the best bang for their buck. But now how can farmers grow smaller potatoes and still make comparable yields?
The easiest way to cater to the smaller chip market is by growing varieties which produce little potatoes — however, most tend to not be sustainable, VanOostrum says. There is work being done on breeding smaller sized tubers which will yield better, grow with less water and lower fertility, not require fumigation and be able to grow in varying soil types, but those won’t be available for a few years.
Until those new varieties hit the market, producers are focusing on agronomic practices to grow smaller potatoes. Farmers can use hormonal applications to trick the potatoes into producing more potatoes or plant their crops with narrower seed and row spacings, forcing the potatoes to grow smaller, VanOostrum says.
“We’re not changing the whole industry, there’s still going to be a request for large bags of potato chips,” it’ll just be more based-on timing, VanOostrum says. “The plants may be more demanding to us, to say Monday, Tuesday we’re running big bags, so we can take these potatoes, and Wednesday, Thursday, we’re running small bags.”
FAQs
The rest of the chips keep moving, carried by conveyor belts up toward the rafters and into the seasoning and packaging areas. It takes four pounds of potatoes to make a single one-pound bag of potato chips, and each year, Golden Flake turns 100 million pounds of potatoes into chips.
Why are Lay's potato chips so small now? ›
What happened? It's called shrinkflation and it's the process by which brands reduce the amount of product they sell to you so as not to have to increase its price in the face of inflation (it should be clarified that sometimes they do it too, although there is no inflation, to increase their profit margins).
Where does the fat in chips come from? ›
Answer and Explanation: Although potatoes in raw forms contain less fat, for preparing potato chips oil is used, so fat in potato comes from external oil that is used in processing potato chips.
Does the potato hack really work? ›
Though many allege that the diet has helped them lose significant weight, no scientific studies support these claims. The potato diet is a fad diet that promises rapid weight loss by eating nothing but potatoes for three to five days. These claims have not been scientifically proven.
Does the potato hack work? ›
The truth is that most diets don't work in the long run.
So while a short-term potato hack is potentially a useful tool to kick-start some dietary habit changes or to lose some weight fast for an event, a long-term potato diet is too restrictive to work for most people.
Why are potato chip bags half empty? ›
It turns out, that empty space in your chip bag isn't just air — it's Nitrogen gas, which is meant to stop the chips from breaking in the package as well as expel air, which actually turns the chips stale.
Why is it so hard to stop eating potato chips? ›
According to a study conducted in 2013, people get attracted to chips and similar foods even when they are full because of the high ratio of fats and carbohydrates. These contents send a pleasing message to the brain that further activate the senses and make you feel tempted to eat more.
Why don t potato chips fill you up? ›
Salty snacks can make you feel hungrier since they're chock full of salt (a standard 1-ounce serving of potato chips packs about 170 milligrams of sodium), which can be pretty dehydrating and confuse your body into feeling hungry when it's really thirsty.
Have bags of chips gotten smaller? ›
If you've picked up a bag of Doritos recently and thought it had less chips in it, you're not going crazy. Some of America's favorite snacks have shrunk by up to 20 percent in the last 25 years as companies cost-cut amid rising inflation, a move dubbed 'shrinkflation'. It is not just chips.
What chips are fried in animal fat? ›
Grandma Utz potato chips are old school. They're thick-cut, crunchy, salty, and deliciously fatty—because they're cooked in lard, not oil. As a result, they have a wonderful savory flavor beyond that of the mass-market brands.
When George Crum, a Native American chef, served the first potato chips to Commordore Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1853, he used the animal fats available in his day to produce his new product. Today, with all the various oils on the market, Gibble's still uses lard - an animal fat - to make their potato chips. Why?
What is the potato paradox riddle? ›
If the potatoes are 99% water, the dry mass is 1%. This means that the 100 kg of potatoes contains 1 kg of dry mass, which does not change, as only the water evaporates. In order to make the potatoes be 98% water, the dry mass must become 2% of the total weight—double what it was before.
How does the potato experiment work? ›
The potato acts as an electrolyte which means it enables the electrons to flow through it. When the nail and pennies are connected to a potato in a circuit, the chemical energy is converted to electrical energy which gives enough power to turn on a small light.
What is the law of the soggy potato chip? ›
“If you love potato chips and there are no chips around except soggy ones, you'll eat the soggy ones, even if they're not great,” Carnahan says. Parents who respond to emotional outbursts by yelling or threatening punishment may provide the very attention the child craves.
Why doesn t chip tell her parents about potato? ›
It's implied that Chip keeps Potato a secret because the other characters would react this way if they believed her to be a real live mouse. Sure enough, this happens in "Chip's School Trip" after Chip is forced to leave behind Potato in a dollhouse in a museum.
