The USPB offers an abundance of research reports and analyses to help you make informed decisions.  Information is categorized by program.
All reports must be ordered via e-mail.

Please Note: USPB research, reports and analyses are for the exclusive use of the United States potato industry.

Consumer/Demographic | Retail | Foodservice | Innovation | International

Consumer/Demographic

Consumer Segmentation and Deep Dive Focus Groups—This two-part study is an in-depth quantitative and qualitative effort.  The quantitative study is based 3,000 U.S. consumers who are primary shoppers for the family with representation across regions balanced to census.  The Deep Dive portion consisted of focus group sessions in Atlanta and Chicago with 48 Linda’s.  This qualitative study allowed us to drill even deeper into who Linda is, and understand how she thinks and acts.  The studies uncovered when and how Linda uses potatoes and identified the key opportunities to increase her potato usage. (email to request a copy)

The way consumers eat potatoes is very different than just 10 years ago. The following research identifies trends, helping more effectively connect with consumers.
2011 Attitude and Usage Study (Sterling-Rice Group and Synovate)—Consumer attitudes, behaviors and perceptions towards potatoes (email to request a copy)

2010 National Eating Trends (NPD Group/NPD Foodworld Reports and Sterling-Rice Group)—In-home dinner trends and their effect on potatoes (email to request a copy)

2009 Ethnography Report (Hartman Group)—In-depth analysis of how target consumers decide what’s for dinner, how potatoes fit into dinner decisions, and identification of desires, aspirations, needs and benefits that consumer associate with fresh potatoes (email to request a copy)

2009 What’s For Dinner?  Changing Potato Consumption in Traditional Dinners (NPD Group)—Special NET Analysis (email to request a copy)

2009 Frequency of Eating (NPD Group)—Special NET analysis of average two-week potato consumption (email to request a copy)

Potato In-Home Pantry Inventory (Synovate)—A quarterly peak into consumers’ pantries (email to request a copy)

back to top

Retail
Understand the retail environment.  Discover changes the potato industry can make to be more profitable.

2009 Consumer Shopping Behavior: Planned vs. Impulse (Perishables Group)—Understand potato consumer purchase behavior and the degree to which potatoes are a planned purchase and drivers of planned purchases and in-store factors that spur unplanned purchases (email to request a copy)

2009 Pricing Consumer Research Project (Perishables Group)—Assessing the impact of economic conditions on the Best in Class category best practices (email to request a copy)

2009 Loyalty Card Data Study (Perishables Group)—Fresh potato consumer transactional purchase behavior (email to request a copy)

2008 Potato Promotion Analysis (Perishables Group)—Identifies optimum discount level, frequency, type, number of items, item mix and packaging mix (email to request a copy)

USPB Resource Center—This password-protected website gives the US potato industry and retailers access to a wealth of resources, including retail program and promotional materials, comparison market data, and retail trend data, all designed to help grow potato category sales.

Reinventing the Potato—See where it all began in 2001—the retail marketing toolkit containing an industry review, consumer and trade practice updates, category management trends and best practices, program updates and implementation guidance.

back to top

Foodservice
2009 Potatoes in the Industrial Ingredient Marketplace (Technomic)—Understand decision making process and roles of key decision makers/influencers among frozen entrée processors and why potatoes aren’t used in more frozen food entrees (email to request a copy)

Q4 2009 Frozen Potato Product Sales to US Foodservice (NPD Group)—Quarterly performance of potato sales at foodservice (email to request a copy)

2009 Potatoes on the Menu (Mintel)—Biannual analysis of potato presence on the menus of the top 350 chains (email to request a copy)

2008 Foodservice Channel Performance and the Potato’s Role (Crest/NPD Group)—Potato eating trends at US foodservice outlets (email to request a copy)

back to top

Innovation
2009 Innovation in the Fresh Space (Perishables Group)—Produce innovation and how it can be effectively leveraged by the potato industry (email to request a copy)

8 Steps to Developing “New” Fresh Potato Products (USPB and Turover Straus)—Learn steps to successfully developing new potato products for retail (email to request a copy)

Learning from Success:  A Study of the United Kingdom Fresh Potato Market—(USPB President & CEO Tim O’Connor)—UK growers and retailers partnered and brought consumer-directed products to the marketplace.  A case study of concepts and practices that could bring innovation to the US potato industry.

back to top

International
The Global Database gives the US potato industry international research, including:

• Up-to-date information about international markets for fresh, processed, and seed potatoes, assembled with the help of the US potato industry, US embassies, agricultural trade offices, and agricultural attaches in each of the countries represented.
• On-line documents with USPB articles and reports which users can download and view.
• USDA Maximum Residue Level (MRL) database, which growers and shippers are encouraged to use to compare MRLs in export markets against US MRLs to determine if foreign residue levels could be problematic.

This is a password-protected web site, so registration is required prior to your first visit.

back to top