Mexican Potato Consumption

Mexican Potato Consumption

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
When I think about Mexican consumption of potatoes, I don’t know why, but I speculated that there might not be a huge appetite for Idaho Russetts so I called Frank Muir who is the Executive Director of the Idaho Potato Commission and asked him to clarify. “There is a growing appetite for potatoes. Potatoes that they have that are grown in Mexico are a different variety than what we predominantly sell here in the US. They are more of a round, white, smaller potato and ours is obviously the more oblong russet variety. So in the 26 km area where we have been shipping for the last 10 years, we have seen a dramatic shift towards the Russetts and they can see more uses for these varieties as they incorporate them into the Mexican diet. We are also doing our best to provide recipes, education on how to best use these potatoes and my understanding is that the per capita consumption is less than half of what it is here in the US. But Mexican families do use potatoes. We do believe that when they have these types of varieties that we are talking about, consumption will go up. They will understand the more versatile use of a russet potato. We are very encouraged by what we see. We did some research and number of years ago down in Mexico City to better understand what the consumer’s perception of Idaho was. Did they connect potatoes with Idaho, did they have the same image in their mind of the quality that potatoes have from Idaho and we found that there is a very positive brand image of potatoes from Idaho.
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