How Potatoes USA Renewed U.S. Frozen Product Interest After Port Crisis
Although it has been well over a year since the West Coast Port labor crisis has been resolved, Potatoes USA Chief Marketing Officer John Toaspern shares how their Board provided additional marketing funds to assist in some rather creative marketing ideas to gain back the lost market which was down about 15 percent. One example in the Philippines was that Potatoes USA purchased restaurant's stock of European frozen fries so they'd be able to purchase U.S. product and donated the product for good. He continuesToaspern: "We tried to clear out that pipeline as much as we could by buying those fries and donating those to orphanages there in Manilla. Another creative thing we did in China was to use social media to inform people where they could find U.S. fries used some games through social media."
He shares the results of these additional marketing efforts
Toaspern: "What we've seen actually in the period between July first and December 31st after things with the shipping perspective back on track we've seen a 20 percent recovery. So we recovered the lost sales and even began to grow again."