US Potato Board supports salad bar challenge

After nearly three months of widespread industry discussion, input and questions, the full membership of the United States Potato Board (USPB)—meeting together with state and national industry representatives—unanimously supported the use of up to $900,000 in USPB reserve funds to match the salad bars donated by the industry in year one of the Salad Bar Challenge, beginning July 1, 2015 with the start of the USPB’s new Fiscal Year (FY) 2016.

The proof of concept for “Potato Friendly” Salad Bars is currently in a testing phase. The Colorado Potato Administrative Committee worked with the USPB in late 2014 to place two salad bars into one Denver-area school district. The district now has salad bars in nine of its 16 schools. Results from this experiment will be made known to the potato industry at the USPB’s 2015 Summer Meeting in August.

Richardson explained, “Funding the Salad Bar Challenge with $1.3 million in the USPB budget does not mean the money will be automatically spent. The staff and USPB members will be good stewards on behalf of the industry, and will sensibly commit limited USPB financial resources towards research and testing.”

In further business, the Board also instructed USPB Marketing Department staff to utilize $400,000 from the Domestic Marketing budget to support the salad bars in the schools. The funds are to be used to provide recipes, serving suggestions, decorations and other materials to the schools throughout the country that have or will receive the salad bars to help them incorporate healthy potato items on the bars. To accomplish this objective, the USPB will be issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for consultants or agencies that can work with the staff to develop the messages, recipes and materials.

For the U.S. potato industry to realize the full potential of this program and what it can achieve by putting healthy potato dishes in front of school children, as well as improving the positive image of potatoes with this key group of influencers and future consumer decision makers, it is absolutely critical all sectors of the industry—from input suppliers and manufacturers, all the way through to the marketing chain—step up and donate at least 300 salad bars this summer that can be immediately put into use this fall for the beginning of the 2015/2016 school year.

For more information visit www.uspotatoes.com.