American small packagers are looking for niches in the market TRADE AND MARKETING like a Russet, but has a much better taste. That’s why we’re selling it as Butter Russet. In this way, we want to steal a little bit from the standard Russet market and we want to make the consumer aware of the fact that potatoes can also taste nice. It’s very important that you always offer the same taste. As we’re growing most of our table potatoes ourselves now, we can optimise the cultivation process and keep an eye on the quality.’ hauliers returning to Colorado. The disadvantage of the train is that the transport takes quite a bit longer. ’By combining the two means of transport, we’re getting enough potatoes at our place to be able to continue to provide our customers’, Hoffman explains. The potatoes are unloaded from the train wagons and the lorry trailers with the aid of an enormous jet of water, after which they are taken to the washing plant via a system of pipes and drains. ‘This internal water transport prevents the tubers from getting damaged’, Hoffman emphasises. What is remarkable is that the washing installation is placed outside. ‘You can do that in Texas, because we’ve got two seasons here. January, in which it can be quite cold but it never freezes for very long, and the hot summer’, Hoffman laughs. Two thirds of the total Mountain King turnover is yellow-fleshed today. The Yukon Gold variety is still standard. ‘Yukon is still the basis in respect of taste, colour and texture when it comes to new variants. Meanwhile, we’re testing a lot of varieties. We’re currently also growing the white-skinned Satin variety and red-skinned varieties such as Mozart, Asterix, Bildtstar, Red Star and Rodeo’, Hoffman tells me. ‘We’re selling these varieties under our own Mountain King label. For example, we call the white-skinned varieties Mountain King Butter Gold and the red-skinned ones Mount King Butter Red. Besides hotels and restaurants, hospitals and schools, a large proportion of our potatoes goes to supermarkets such as HEB, Groger, Wallmart and Supervalue. The supermarkets now also want to offer their customers yellowfleshed potatoes. These are more expensive per bag, so that you can earn more per square metre. The buyers are more concerned with the turnover than with kilograms. In a shrinking market like the potato market, this is definitely an important argument.’ Consistent taste ‘Transport by haulier is more expensive in Texas than it is outside the State. That fact provides us with opportunities to sell table potatoes east of Texas. Especially in the urban areas, you see that the smaller families are starting to ask for small packages of tasty potatoes. An example is the marketing of the Innovator variety. This Western-European variety looks Placing banners ‘In order to stimulate our sales, we’re placing banners in the various supermarkets where we encourage combination sales. For example, we sell Russet potatoes on a special shelf that we’ve placed next to the butcher’s department. By calling them Mountain King Steakhouse Baker, the consumer suddenly remembers what he can do with these potatoes. That gave the sales an enormous boost. We did the same with the Potato Fingerlings, which are mouse-shaped potatoes. By promoting them as Steakhouse Roaster, this inspired consumers to prepare them like that. We backed this up by printing recipes on the packaging and placing them on our own website. Another example is the B grading, which we applied to red-skinned potatoes. These potatoes are 1.25 to 5.5. cm long. Consumers like to eat them with langoustines, which is a Texan specialty. You boil the potato together with the langoustines. By selling them now together with the herbs and the langoustines, their sales have gone up considerably. All these choices point to an extremely fragmented market. By focusing on the market, we can make better cropping plans - and not the other way around. Because it’s the market that determines the success. If you already know this during cultivation, you can kill the haulm at exactly the right time and harvest a perfect product for the market, and you don’t hold out for those last few kilograms. This is also what makes our company so powerful’, Hoffman emphasis. Potatoes from a goods carriage are unloaded with the aid of an enormous water jet. Potato World 2014 • number 4 17 Pagina 56
Pagina 58Heeft u een brochure, turnpages of eonderwijscatalogi? Gebruik Online Touch: archief online op uw website plaatsen.
Potatoworld 2014/4 Lees publicatie 34Home