A Pennsylvania potato grower is bringing some pizzazz to a vegetable category that’s been kind of boring.
Folkland Organic Foods is preparing to enter — or maybe define — the world of premium frozen french fries.
Folkland is the project of Colt and Zack Troyer, whose family owned the regional potato chip brand Troyer Farms until about 15 years ago.
The Erie County brothers were too young to have been involved in the chip business, so they went to Penn State and started careers in other fields.
But they always planned to build their own legacy in food manufacturing.
“We had big dreams for what the farm could be and getting into some kind of vertically integrated product, farming the way we’d want,” Zack said.
That involved transitioning the farm to organic, and it would be the first step to making Folkland stand out in the market.
Few other frozen french fries are organic, and Colt said none are being cooked in olive oil, as Folkland fries are.
Olive oil can be difficult to source, and it has a relatively low smoke point. But it has a great flavor and it isn’t a seed oil, which some consumers have grown wary of. (Health experts say the concern is unwarranted.)
The oil selection exemplifies the Troyers’ focus on simple but high quality ingredients, like seasonings that aren’t watered down with filler material. Colt said those were hard to find.
Naturally, that premium palate extends to the potatoes used for the fries. The Troyers aren’t big fans of russets.
“People in Pennsylvania have been growing a lot better varieties for making french fries for some time, so we’re using those,” Zack said.
The Troyers grew the first year’s crop themselves, totaling 65 acres of certified organic potatoes.
A package of Folkland Organic Foods’ french fries.
In the next three years or so, the Troyers plan to transition basically all of their owned land and their acreage with secure long-term leases — approximately 1,500 acres.
This year the company will also have four contract growers, including two in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Each of these farms will grow 5 to 15 acres of organic potatoes, and the Troyers will share agronomic practices and check in with them throughout the season.
The Troyers are looking to recruit more contract growers.
Growing Goodness
Whether fresh or frozen, the organic potato supply is limited — in part because even conventional potatoes take a lot of work.
Techniques for controlling weeds in organic row crops should translate to potatoes, though Zack said there will still be more weed trash to contend with at harvest time than in a conventional field.
Disease management could be tricky, considering East Coast conventional growers spray for late blight every seven to 10 days.
Organic fungicides are available, but Zack hopes resistant potato varieties eventually contribute to the solution.
Some organic insecticides are somewhat effective against potato pests, but crop rotation and timing can also help, Zack said.
“I think we’re figuring out little tricks and little mechanisms and specific types of equipment to deal with those little things,” he said.
In the meantime, the farm’s new enterprise is getting noticed.
Gov. Josh Shapiro visited in October to celebrate Folkland receiving a $3 million Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant from the state.
To set up the business, the Troyers built a 16,000-square-foot potato warehouse, 8,100-square-foot addition for manufacturing, and 3,600-square-foot addition for a freezer warehouse.
The Troyers declined to give the project cost, though a press release from the governor’s office listed it at $7 million.
With new french fry processing equipment out of their price range, the brothers hired a few key people who had been part of Troyer Farms potato chip business.
The team assembled a good-as-new french fry plant with mostly used equipment, Zack said.
Zack Troyer stands in a potato storage facility.
The state funding was key to developing the modern storage facility, which will allow each grower’s crop to be stored separately.
Pennsylvania has little modern potato storage, but the state will need it to rebuild potato acreage that has dwindled over time, Zack said.
In addition to honoring the family’s potato chip legacy, Folkland’s vertical integration is designed to reduce food waste.
When potato growers have a defective potato, they normally throw away the whole spud. Those losses can be 10% of a crop.
But the Troyers use an optical sorter to find the potatoes that have only surface defects.
Those potatoes are run through a peeler, rechecked for quality and sent next door to become fries.
That process saves half the potatoes that would otherwise be lost.
“Those potatoes don’t have any time to go bad because they go right into the processing plant,” Zack said.
Over time, the Troyers hope to expand into more frozen products, like tater tots, pierogies and mixed root vegetables.
“We really view Folkland as an umbrella brand, a food brand, not just a potato brand,” Colt said.
To keep things simple, though, the company is starting with three types of fries: Himalayan salt, Cajun spice and garlic rosemary.
The brothers developed the fry recipe and seasonings themselves. They aimed to create flavors that could come from a trendy food truck — not necessarily fancy, but definitely tasty.
“It comes down to wanting to produce something that we would actually want to eat and would feel comfortable feeding to our family,” Colt said.
Folkland’s processing equipment is running, and the brothers hope to have product in stores — including two retailers widely distributed across Pennsylvania — by June.
