The new logo of Associated Potato Growers Inc. reflects the growing popularity of yellow potatoes. The 73-year-old cooperative, based in north Grand Forks, recently added yellow potatoes to its logo, which since the beginning had featured only red potatoes.
Demand for yellow potatoes began increasing about a decade ago, said Mike Torgerson, Associated Potato Growers Inc. CEO.
“It’s been a steady increase,” Torgerson said. "They’re used for almost everything a red is. It’s a variety that has taken off. People like something new.”
The cooperative washes and packages potatoes grown by its farmers.
‘It’s washed, packed and bagged, ready for the shelf,” Torgerson said.
Seventeen farmers in North Dakota and Minnesota grow potatoes for Associated Potato Growers Inc., which is the only grower-owned potato cooperative in the Red River Valley. Besides shipping its potatoes to distributors , the cooperative markets directly to customers from its locations in Grand Forks, Grafton and Drayton under the name of Nodak.
“Pretty much, daily, we sell to the public," Torgerson said.
The fertile Red River Valley soil is ideal for growing the red and yellow potatoes, he said. However, potato production is not without a variety of challenges, many of them weather-related.
“We hold 1.3 million hundredweight and that’s where we’d like to be,” he said. ‘We’ve fallen short of that the last couple of years.”
“These last years, we’ve had extremes – too wet and too dry,” he said.
The 2019 harvest, for example, was hampered by muddy, wet conditions that left fields unable to support harvest equipment, resulting in abandoned acres. The wet conditions continued during the 2020 spring planting season, and dirt lumps formed when tractors and planting equipment drove on the fields. When the weather turned dry later in the summer, the lumps hardened and bruised the potatoes during harvest.
An advantage of being a cooperative is that it draws product from a geographically diverse area that extends from Buxton, N.D., to Pembina, N.D., Torgerson said. That means weather conditions in one location may be better for growing potatoes than that in another, resulting in higher production in the former.
“You miss the big rain down in Grand Forks, but they may have got a nice rain up north," Torgerson said.
During 2020, besides excessively dry harvest conditions, a challenge for the cooperative was keeping employees safe during the coronavirus pandemic. Associated Potato Growers Inc. socially distanced employees, put up dividers in the break rooms and wore masks to keep employees healthy.
Demand for fresh potatoes initially dropped during the early days of the pandemic when restaurants closed their doors, but rebounded when shoppers increased their buying at grocery stores, Torgerson said.
Retail demand for yellow and red potatoes has increased by 10% to 15% during the past year, and he hopes that trend will grow.
"They're a good source of nutrition," Torgerson said, noting that potatoes contain Vitamin C and potassium.
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Associated Potato Growers Inc. packages Red River Valley potatoes for buyers across the United States - Grand Forks Herald
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