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| HEADLINES (Click on headline for full story): | October 19, 2007 |
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US DEHY INTEGRATED INTO STARBUCKS JAPAN NEW SANDWICH MENUS!!! Would you like some US dehy with your triple Grande, extra hot, non-fat cappuccino? US dehy exports increased 12% over the previous year, reaching 18,935 MT or 2,713,858 cwt FWE this past marketing year (July 2006 – June 2007). Successful product launches, such as the new sandwich launched in 705 Starbucks Japan outlets, contributes to this overall, continued growth. The new sandwich bun contains US dehy, following upon the success of other bakery launches of “potato bread” in the country. The United States Potato Board’s (USPB’s) newly developed bakery manual educating the Japanese trade on the usage and benefits of US dehy in bakery applications, along with participating in the MOBAC Bakery Trade Show, and providing dehy samples, all contributed to the successful development and launch of this new product.
USPB DEHY PROGRAM IN MEXICO GETS TECHNICAL! Continuing its long standing efforts to
AIB TO IDENTIFY NEW DEHY BAKING APPLICATIONS Several months ago, the USPB retained the American Institute of Baking (AIB) to help the domestic dehy industry in developing and identifying applications for dehy within the baking industry. This initiative was identified as an opportunity by the dehydrators during an industry dehy meeting last year. AIB’s work to-date will be presented and discussed at this year’s industry meeting in Pasco, WA, October 29th. USPB FROZEN POTATO PROGRAM IN MEXICO HITTING ON ALL CYLINDERS
Just in August alone, USPB engineers conducted 49 restaurant chain training sessions in Mexico City and Monterrey, for quick service, family dinning and pub style restaurants. Also during August, 10 tailored seminars were held in Mexico City, Toluca and Monterrey for the El Arrabal restaurant chain, the Piccolo Mondo restaurant chain that has just begun to serve US frozen potatoes and the Papalote chain. Retail promotions and tasting were conducted with Wal-Mart, Bodega Aurrera and HEB supermarkets. In total, 84 sampling days were achieved with these three retailers at their stores in northern Mexico. The potato profile management program continued to provide healthy potato PR with the issuance of a press release on diabetes and carbohydrate consumption. During August there were five pick-ups of USPB PR in different media from magazines to web sites. The magazine Cocina del Diario, a consumer cooking magazine, published seven delicious USPB recipes, while the website, Restaurantes de Mexico, a trade site, published a number of recipes using US potatoes.
RESTAURANTS & RETAILERS IN MALAYSIA & SINGAPORE ADDING NEW US FROZEN POTATO PRODUCTS USPB programs for frozen potato products in Malaysia and Singapore are resulting in the addition of new and additional products to menus and retail shelves. The activities carried out to generate these results include restaurant chain training, promotional support and merchandising. In fact, the chain training activity has been so successful in improving in-store preparation and handling that the owners of A & W Malaysia and Burger King Malaysia have requested training programs for all their outlets and in-depth seminars for all their managers. Cold Storage, a 30 outlet supermarket in Singapore, introduced four new US frozen potato products. Mary Brown Fried Chicken in Malaysia added Curry Shaken Fries to the menu in celebration of Malaysia’s 50th Independence Day celebration. Nikko Hotel in Kuala Lumpur added a US hash brown patty to their breakfast menu. Chinzo on the Park in Kuala Lumpur added US straight cut fries to a menu that already featured crinkle cut and wedges from the US. Burger King East Malaysia and the Concorde Hotel in Kuala Lumpur have switched to sourcing only 100% US frozen potatoes. INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT SUBMITS COUNTRY PROGRESS REPORT TO FAS The USPB International Department staff prepared the Country Progress Report (CPR) as the final evaluation of activities carried out with Market Access Program (MAP) funding in Marketing Year (MY) 2006/2007. This 200 plus page report is the evaluation portion of the Unified Export Strategy (UES) which contains the constraints the activities are directed against and performance measures which measure progress. It was good to see progress against all of our constraints and positive performance measures in almost all cases. The final aspect of the report is recommendations for moving the programs forward and will be utilized to help guide this year’s program and write next year’s UES. Copies of the relevant sections of the report were sent to the FAS officers stationed in all of our target markets, as well as the headquarters staff in Washington, DC. USPB CHIP COMMITTEE ANNOUNCES MEETING The USPB Chip Committee will meet in Branson, MO, Wednesday, December 5th, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. prior to the start of the 2007 Outlook Summit/NPC Seed Seminar. Please email Mac Johnson, macjohnson@uspotatoes.com, with any subjects or input you would like for the committee to discuss or review. MAKE PLANS TO ATTEND THE USPB CHIP SEMINAR IN ORLANDO Agendas and registration forms are nearly complete for the USPB Chip Seminar, March 5-8, 2008. However, you can make your room reservations today. The 2008 Chip Seminar will be held at the Wyndham Orlando Resort, Orlando, FL. For room reservations, call 407-351-2420 and ask for the “United States Potato Board Chip Seminar special room rate of $149.00”. We want to make this year’s Seminar even bigger and better than last year – so make your room reservations today to make sure you get a room at the Seminar hotel!! UNDERSTANDING CONSUMERS TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS Recently, the USPB began purchasing Homescan, a product of the AC Nielsen Company, to increase the breadth of information and data resources the USPB offers to the US industry to further drive potato consumption. Over 125,000 households are given “home scanners”, and when they return from a shopping trip, Homescan participants scan their purchases – and where they bought them. This scanning data provides valuable insights into where consumers shop and what the consumers’ demographics look like. The USPB has completed brief, two-page overviews of shopper demographics for fresh, chips and dehy. For a copy, just email macjohnson@uspotatoes.com. USPB WORKS WITH NUTRITION OPINION LEADERS AT AMERICAN DIETETIC ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONVENTION Recently, the USPB sponsored a booth and co-sponsored two presentations at the annual convention of the American Dietetic Association held in Philadelphia, September 29th – October 2nd. Over 20,000 Registered Dietitians and allied professionals attended. This group has always been supportive of the nutritional value of potatoes, but this year was a particularly good one. The most consistent comment heard, other than “I love potatoes”, was that potatoes had been receiving a “bad rap” because of low-carb diets. Today’s Dietitian magazine ran a special meeting issue with an article called “Making Sense of the Most Misunderstood Foods.” Potatoes were one of these foods, and the author listed their many nutritional benefits. The sessions USPB co-sponsored were:
MARTHA STEWART SHOW SPOTLIGHTS SPUDS Make sure to pencil in a coffee break on October 26th…or at least enough time to watch the “Ask Martha” segment of that day’s Martha Stewart Show. The USPB got a call last week for potato information for the segment which we provided along with all the great potato nutrition information. Our sources have it that the entire segment of the show is dedicated to all things potatoes--fingers crossed that includes Martha discussing potato nutrition with her 1.6 million viewers! Special thanks to the folks at Sterman Masser. The show needed potatoes, overnight, to decorate the set, and the Pennsylvania potato grower/shipper group hand-selected a beautiful assortment of potatoes, representing almost every type of potato and had them in New York City in plenty of time for the taping. POTATOES BURST ONTO THE “SOCIAL NETWORKING” SCENE The Potato Underground, www.potatounderground.com, the USPB's newest on-line tool to reach consumers with the potato nutrition message is live and running well. The Potato Underground is a “blog”, which technically means it’s an on-line web-log…in layman’s terms, it’s a website where people write about what’s on their minds and the rest of the world can respond. For example, of special interest to growers is a current feature on harvest, http://www.potatounderground.com/index.php/2007/10/15/harvest-round-up/. The blog-site was designed to house three video-vignettes which feature our celebrity chefs, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarborough, demonstrating three timesaving tricks for preparing:
…and all in less than 10 minutes. The Potato Underground also spotlights a host of healthy potato recipes, reports from potato growers throughout the US, and updates on relevant nutrition information. We invite you to visit the blog weekly for new postings and feel free to share your favorite potato recipe or to pose a potato-specific nutrition question to the USPB’s nutrition expert. And, please, share this great new potato site with your friends and family! IT MAY BE UNDERGROUND, BUT THE WORLD WIDE WEB GIVES WWW.POTATOUNDERGROUND.COM RAVE REVIEWS The USPB officially launched www.potatounderground.com to the social media two weeks ago with aggressive outreach to on-line editors who had the influence to link consumers directly to the new blog site. Since then, a number of websites with extremely high traffic counts have praised the new USPB blog-site. This excerpt from About.com: To demonstrate to the industry the early success of www.potatounderground.com, here is a roundup of who’s talkin’ tubers on the World Wide Web:
1. Links to other sites for “Busy Cooks” 2. Nutrition Home Page http://nutrition.about.com/
1. Au Gratin Vignette 2. Mashed Vignette http://www.ifood.tv/node/14774 3. Roasted Vignette http://www.ifood.tv/node/14776
Au Gratin and Roasted Vignettes http://www.best-restaurants.org/2007/10/04/
Home Page http://www.vegetarian-foodie.com/
http://www.onlinecooking.net/output.php?ArticleID=6388
http://www.fitness-equipment-solutions.com/healthy-living/healthy-food/nutritious-cooking/#more-109
http://news.bigg.net/n81163Healthy_Recipes_for_Potatoes_Offered_in_New_Blog.html
http://subjectblogs.com/2007/10/08/healthy-recipes-for-potatoes-offered-in-new-blog/ |
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©2007 United States Potato Board |
provide bakeries and food manufacturers in Mexico with technical assistance, the USPB held its first bakery seminar of the new marketing year in Puebla. This seminar was jointly sponsored with the US Cranberry Marketing Committee and held through the national bakery association, CANAINPA. The seminar began with an explanation of the advantages of using US dehy in bakery products, after which the participants made different baked goods using dehy in the practical portion of the seminar. Participants were also provided rehydration kits with various types of dehy so they could learn about the different types and their properties.
One-on-one technical assistance was provided to six different companies, including importer/distributors of dehy located in Queretaro City, and another in Mexico City. By training the distributors, they are better able to sell US dehy to their customers. Training was also provided to a cookie manufacturer, restaurant chain, department store with in-house restaurants and two catering companies. Given the complexities of dehy, the only way to expand sales through new customers is for the USPB to sponsor this ongoing training. 
The USPB increases demand for US frozen potato products in Mexico by reaching both the trade and consumers. Targeting the trade is accomplished through restaurant chain training and tailored seminars held in conjunction with the importer/distributors. Consumers are reached through restaurant and retail promotions, while both sectors benefit from the positive potato profile information distributed through the PR program.