Packaging Potatoes
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| A potato is a
potato. Or is it? At the
farmer's market one can buy really fresh
potatoes.
In the photo above, Jeff Bruce, owner of Caithness
Farm in Waimate, holds a bag of New Season
Jersey Bennes he dug up just a couple of days
earlier. He says that after decades in
farming it is still exciting to turn over a fork
of soil and see the potatoes emerge. Most often, however, one probably buys potatoes at the supermarket. There are a lot of options. In addition to the different varieties, one can buy spuds loose (>) or in bags or boxes branded by a grower or grocery chain. From handy 700g bags or 1kg boxes to large 5kg or 10kg bags there are plenty of packaged potatoes. The question arises: does packaging design and copy influence our buying decisions? In the absence of the grower, packaging copy tells the story. Factors highlighted include taste, flavour, and texture, the grower story (often going back several generations), information on the locale, soil, and growing conditions, and a nod to sustainability. "NZ grown," usually with an outline of New Zealand, is obligatory, and some are even promoted as "South Island grown."1 The small bags or boxes seem to have more poetic prose than the large 5kg or 10kg bags. One marketing objective is to establish a bit of a connection between the grower and their farm and the consumer in the store. To a limited extent, store packaging can emulate the personal approach seen at farmers markets by including a photo of the grower and a note from or about the grower. Thus boxes of Oakley's potatoes features a photo of Robin Oakley, 5th Generation Grower, bags of Crozier Farm potatoes have a photo of the three brothers as kids, and a box of Appleby's Jersey Bennes features a photo of Mark O'Connor. Bags of Lucky Sod™ potatoes even have a farm code that one can enter on their website to find out where they are grown. However, when I entered the code from the bag, it responded, "This is not a known farm code. Please try again." Some of the packaging design and copy is quite clever and even a bit over the top. A 1kg bag of Balle Bros' Lucky Sod™ potatoes notes, "At Balle Bros we want each and every potato to feel like a lucky sod. Just like the soil in which they're grown, they've had just the right amount of sunshine, rain and good old grower know-how to nurture them and make them the best they can be." Sounds almost like they're going to school. Countdown (Woolworths NZ) offers an interesting sustainability approach in "The Odd Bunch," described as "unique produce that dreams of being tasted not wasted." Some brands eschew creativity for a generic look; examples include Pams, the house brand marketed at New World, Pak'n Save, and Four Square supermarkets, and Safeway Traders Ltd's Value potatoes. In Dunedin, Jersey Bennes are noted early season potatoes, and are "a thing." They start to hit the stores in late November and early December, and often one will find a news article or two on the Jersey Benne phenomenon. Look through comments and you will find people rhapsodizing about them. Packaging for one brand, Grandview Fresh's Totara Jersey Benne new potatoes, says the spuds draw their "exquisite" taste and flavour from "the very fertile and unique 'volcanic tar' soils of the Totara Region - North Otago." A number of comments about Jersey Bennes do warn shoppers that the accolades apply specifically to fresh new potatoes, and there is also the caveat that they should be from North Otago. A relatively new innovation is low carb potatoes. T&G Growers' Lotatoes™ claim "40% fewer carbohydrates and...a growing cycle that’s 25% shorter than Agria or Rua potato varieties." GroPak's Carb-Lite™ varieties claim to "have at least 25% less carbohydrates than the common New Zealand Rua potato per serve." For me freshness is the most important factor; I'm not sure if I'd be able to distinguish among various supermarket potatoes in a blind taste test. Many packages of potatoes do have a "Packed On" date stamped on them. Seeing a "Packed On" date that is just a few days earlier does motivate me to put a bag or box of those spuds in the cart. 1. For this article, in addition
to going to the Otago Farmers Market, I looked at
potatoes in four stores in Dunedin in Nov.
2025—New World, Countdown, Pak 'n Save, and Veggie
Boys. Packaged potatoes came from around the
South Island including Invercargill, Palmerston
North, North Otago, Canterbury, and the Nelson
area, but some also from the North Island
including Pukekohe in the Auckland area. I
would expect that in the North Island and in the
Auckland area, there is a very different mix of
growers.
2. The article was mainly put together in November with some tweaks in December. Brands seen later, in January, are here: 1, 2. See also: Shawn McAvinue. "Harvest begins after rain delay." Otago Daily Times, 4 December 2024. Shawn McAvinue. "Demand for Jersey Bennes set to 'go crazy.'" Otago Daily Times, 6 December 2023. Shawn McAvinue. "Jersey Benne grower in it for the long run." Otago Daily Times, 21 December 2021. Oliver Lewis. "Winter of discontent for Jersey Benne potato lovers." stuff, 26 November 2017. Sally Brooker. "Wet spring slowing spud harvest." Otago Daily Times, 6 December 2016. Sally Brooker. "Profitable harvest of Jersey Bennes." Otago Daily Times, 14 November 2014. David Wright. "Oamaru Jersey Bennies - Otago Potato" Food Heroes, 21 December 2010. [blog post from 15 years ago, but people are still commenting] Carolyn McCurdie. "A Potato Sonnet: Jersey Bennes for Christmas" in Bones in the Octagon. Mākaro Press, 2015. |
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Copyright © 2025 Eric M. Appleman All
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