USPB Launches the Potato Underground

DENVER—(October 19, 2007) The United States Potato Board (USPB) recently launched its newest on-line tool to reach consumers with its potato nutrition message. The Potato Underground website—www.potatounderground.com—is an online web-log, shortened to “blog,” inviting people everywhere to participate in talking about all things potato.

It may be underground, but the World Wide Web gives www.potatounderground.com great reviews. The site launched 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 this new USPB resource.

This excerpt came from About.com: “Potato Underground --I love potatoes, in all forms. Even during the low carb craze, I never cut down on my potato snarfing. This fabulous new site, from the U.S. Potato Board, has tons of information, great recipes (including a 10-minute recipe for mashed potatoes - from scratch!), and health info. Check it out!”

The blog-site was designed to house three video-vignettes, which feature celebrity chefs Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarborough demonstrating three timesaving tricks for preparing mashed, roasted and Au Gratin potatoes in less than 10 minutes.

“We asked women nationwide to test these techniques in their homes and the vast majority were thrilled with the results, saying that they’d add them to their dinnertime routine,” says Linda McCashion, vice president of public relations for the USPB. “We hope to spread this enthusiasm quickly through our new blog which easily allows sharing of our cooking demonstration videos.”         

The blog-site spotlights a host of healthy potato recipes, reports from potato growers throughout the U.S., and updates on relevant nutrition information. Industry members everywhere are invited to visit the blog weekly for new postings and to share favorite potato recipes or to pose a potato-specific nutrition question to the USPB’s nutrition consultant Katherine Beals, Ph.D., R.D. Be sure and tell your friends and family about this great new potato site.
 

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David Fairbourn is Manager, Industry Communications & Policy, at the United States Potato Board in Denver. The mission of the USPB is to increase demand for potatoes and potato products through an integrated promotion program, thereby providing US producers with expanding markets for their production. David can be contacted at 303-369-7783 or david.fairbourn@uspotatoes.com. For complete information about the programs, ROI results, and resources and tools available to all members of the industry through the USPB, please visit www.uspotatoes.com. The United States Potato Board – “Maximizing Return on Grower Investment”.