Growers dismiss low-carb diet as passing trend

Outlook bright for potatoes on dinner plates

Low-carbohydrate diets may be all the rage, but area potato growers are expecting demand for their product to rise again.

"It's like all new fad trends," said Allen Floyd, vice chair of the Washington State Potato Commission. "It's definitely a low-carb situation going around; it's affected potatoes. Our usage is down. The consumers aren't buying as many right now."

Floyd's sentiment appears to be shared amongst potato growers across the board. All are feeling an impact.

"It's definitely affected us this marketing season," said Paul Morris, WSPC commissioner and a potato farmer in Ephrata in a partnership with his two brothers. "Sales are slow, demand is weak. We grow table stock potatoes. Our selling prices are off probably 25 to 30 percent to what you'd expect for the overall supply that the state produced."

Frank Martinez, WSPC commissioner and owner of Saddleview Farms in Royal City, said he thought that the low-carb diet trend has affected potato fryers a lot.

"I have some potatoes that I haven't been able to move yet because there's just no demand," Martinez said. "But I don't want to sound negative. Fry sales have slowed down some, but they are on their way back up. They are rebounding. It just takes a while for things to catch up and demand to increase."

That's another sentiment that seems to be shared by potato growers across the board: The low-carb trend is just a fad, and things will be get back to normal.

"There have been a lot of trends through history, we see them come and go," Floyd said. "Potatoes have been around for a hundred years, so I'm sure they'll survive. It's temporary in my belief. I believe people need a balanced diet, and not these extremes of no carbohydrates, no proteins."

Morris, too, said that he isn't making any changes because the low-carb diet is a temporary condition that consumers are dealing with right now.

"They'll be back to the table for more potatoes come fall," he predicted.

Martinez said that one of the things that the WSPC is to promote the potato as healthy choice.

"All along, it's not the potato that's fattening," he said. "It's the sour cream and the bacon bits that people are adding. It's one of the healthiest vegetables that we eat in the world … It'll come back. It's just a fad, and fads tend to end. It's actually a good, healthy vegetable; it's gotten a bad rap."

Part of that plan is an advertising campaign reminding people of the nutritional values of eating potatoes.

"We're trying to get good information out there to very critical decision makers in places like Washington, D.C. and Olympia," said WSPC executive director Pat Boss. "We're also trying to do stuff on airlines where a lot of influential business people and politicians fly. We don't have enough money to go out and do a national campaign, but we are targeting publications where very influential people might read them, and trying to get a good factual message out about potato nutrition."

That's the only way to approach the situation, said WSPC commissioner Ellie Charvet, who works for the P.J. Taggares Company.

"Get the word out: Exercise and eat sensible," he said. "If you eat fries every day, it's a problem, but if you eat sensible and exercise, it shouldn't be a problem."