April 09 , 2007

The Fresh Demand Working Group (FDWG) held its second meeting, March 28. This industry forum was created to bring together a mix of organizations and growers to address one common goal—increasing demand for fresh potatoes. 

The FDWG has made significant progress in identifying short, medium and long-term strategies for everyone in the fresh potato industry to address as priorities to achieve a positive lift on demand. The FDWG, through all participating organizations, will be communicating those strategies to the industry in the near future.

Additionally, the FDWG reviewed its participants and identified a few areas to add to the list to ensure the entire fresh industry was represented and actively participating in the forum. If you have questions or would like to know more about the FDWG, please contact Tim O’Connor toconnor@uspotatoes.com or Mac Johnson macjohnson@uspotatoes.com, or by calling 303-369-7783.

In March 2005, the World Health Organization issued an alert of acrylamide. By April, negative reports on potato and potato products began mounting in the Chinese media, where 75% of all reports on potatoes were negative and only 5% were positive. What began as a media scare quickly turned to a crisis for frozen potato products when, in October 2005, KFC, the largest quick service restaurant (QSR) chain in China, with 1,500 outlets, took out fries from their combo menu in response to negative publicity and in their attempt to build a new image of “Xin Kuai Can”, a new “healthy”, non-western concept of fast food. This significantly impacted world fry exports, as well as US export sales to China with decreases of 23% & 39%, respectively. To counter-balance the negative reports of potato and potato products in Chinese media, the USPB frozen program launched a Potato Nutrition Campaign in April 2006, after a surge of additional Market Access Program (MAP) government funds were received to help support this critical project for US potatoes.

In total, the USPB-conducted potato nutrition campaign generated three press releases, two advertorials, seven media seminars and one Chinese Media Reverse Training Mission (RTM) to the US—all designed to convey positive potato nutrition information.

Recently, USPB contracted Shanghai Library to conduct a media monitoring project that would objectively measure the overall effectiveness of the Chinese Nutrition Campaign.

Altogether, 114 media in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Dalian and Nanjing were monitored; all media were paper media (newspaper or periodicals). These seven cities were also the venues for the seven-city media tour. Shanghai Library monitored the report in these 114 media for the twelve-month period, December 1, 2005 to November 31, 2006. All reports from these media during this time period were related with potato or potato products and were recorded and clarified by nature: Beneficial, Factual or Adverse.

The monitoring result shows the USPB Chinese Nutrition Campaign did, indeed, counter-balance the many negative reports in the Chinese press. Diagram 1 shows the percentage of positive reports began to increase from 5% in February when the nutrition campaign started, to reach its highest level of 56% in July when the seven-city media tour was completed. However, positive reports again declined to 9% in September, but then rocketed again due to the media reports released by the media RTM participants:

Diagram 1:  Percentage of Positive Report Coverage (By Month)

Totally, there were 436 reports related to potato and potato products detected from these media during the period of December 2005 to November 2006. Among these reports, 94 were positive which counted 21.5% of the total reports. This result also supported that media PR would be an effective way to enhance the positive impact of US potato and potato products to Chinese consumers.

UNITED NATIONS DECLARES 2008 “INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF THE POTATO

The United Nations recently declared 2008 to be the International Year of the Potato, with the stated purpose of focusing world attention on the role potatoes play in providing food security and alleviating poverty around the globe.

The UN concept paper discusses many positive potato characteristics, such as the fact the potato “yields more nutrition, more quickly, on less land, and in harsher climates than any other major crop.”  In the nutrition section, the paper notes potatoes are”rich in protein, calcium and vitamin C, and have an especially good amino acid balance.”  The USPB would add the potato is also good source of potassium.

The USPB feels both domestic and international marketing programs can benefit from activities related to the International Year of the Potato. For example, the USPB’s international program is working on a variety of food aid and other relief programs. The International Year of the Potato offers further opportunity to integrate US dehydrated potatoes into food assistance programs, as US dehydrated potato products are very nutritious and offer a much more complete food than other products utilized in these programs.  Further, they require little fuel to prepare and are easy to transport and store. 

Domestically, the USPB is looking forward to pointing out how highly the international community values the potato as a staple and as a highly nutritious food, and how the potato has impacted populations throughout history. Dissemination of this information should go a long way toward dispelling negative and false, beliefs about potatoes perpetuated by the plethora of diet books. 

The USPB looks forward to announcing the International Year of the Potato to US consumers and media with an event in New York highlighting the importance of potatoes in nurturing the world’s populations. USPB will also take that opportunity to announce plans to create School Wellness Grants for schools trying to improve the health of their students, but limited by budgets.

The USPB will create press kits on “A Year of Potatoes”, containing information on the International Year of the Potato, as well as 12 healthy and internationally-themed potato recipes (with photos). These materials will inspire food editors to run potato stories year-round and will remind consumers potatoes have long been an important food source in many world cultures.

The Taipei International Food Show will be held at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall, Taipei, Taiwan, June 21-24, 2007. The USPB will have a booth at the show and would like US table-stock growers to join them in representing the US industry.

This is the largest food and beverage show in Taiwan and is one of the premier shows in Asia, catering to the food industry and attracting companies from all over the world.

Local food importers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers and consumers attend this show.

The USPB booth will be located in the USA Pavilion, which has been one of the largest USA Pavilions in the world for the last three years. Table space in the booth is limited, so respond as soon as possible to ensure your place.

"This is a great opportunity to meet potential customers in person,” said Sarah Mahler, USPB International Marketing Manager.  “And the price is certainly right!" For only the cost of your hotel and airfare, participants will receive many benefits including:

• Booth decorations by USPB representatives from Taiwan
• Several different potato varieties displayed by the USPB
• Recipe samples for attendees, provided by the USPB
• Translation 
• Table space to display your company information and materials
• And very valuably, on the day before the trade show, the USPB will organize a seminar to tell you about its programs and the market and then visit retail outlets

Don’t miss this exciting opportunity! Time is running out! Read more about the show or register today by visiting http://www.uspotatoes.com/820calendar.html.  If you are interested, please e-mail Sarah Mahler at sarah@uspotatoes.com or call at 303-873-2334.

The USPB International Chip-stock Marketing Program has just created a new poster for use by global customers. USPB educational materials are developed to give manufacturers more information about US chip-stock potatoes, thus facilitating greater satisfaction with US chip-stock, increased sales and stronger customer relationships. This newest edition to the USPB materials library is a US chip-stock storage and handling poster. Sarah Mahler, International Marketing Manager, noted, “We’ve found during our visits and conversations with snack manufacturers they want to know how to maintain US potatoes’ high quality by learning the optimal storage conditions, and how to handle US potatoes. We’ve created this poster to provide an easy reference for them to see US industry recommendations on storing our high quality potatoes.”

To receive this newest USPB international chip-stock sales tool, please e-mail Sarah Mahler at sarah@uspotatoes.com or call 303-873-2334.

• USPB Poster (pdf)

Registration for the 2007 International Potato Symposium is open. The Symposium will kick-off the Seed Tour in Las Vegas, Nevada, at Caesar’s Palace, July 30, 2007. There will be an opening reception on July 29, 2007. USPB is hosting seed importers and growers from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Uruguay. This is the first time Nicaraguan guests have attended the seed tour and will also be the first time a produce buyer and restaurateur from Uruguay will attend. Please see the attached information to register.  Registration ends June 25, 2007.  Please contact Leah Cochran at 303-873-2323 or lcochran@uspotatoes.com.

• 2007 Symposium Announcement  Registration Form (pdf)

On March 8, USDA-APHIS signed a market access agreement with the Honduran government for US seed potatoes. Previous seed potato shipments have been subject to an import permit system, where requirements can change from permit to permit. A signed market access agreement formalized the requirements and provides regulations which can be used should a dispute occur.

The US currently has seed potato market access agreements with Brazil, Panama, Nicaragua and Uruguay. USPB would like to thank USDA-APHIS for its continuing efforts of gaining access for US seed potatoes into its target markets.

For more information, please contact Leah D. Cochran at 303-873-2323 or lcochran@uspotatoes.com.

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