Consumer bags are packaging favorites for potatoes

Consumer packs typically account for about half the fresh-market potatoes shipped by suppliers in Washington and Oregon, grower-shippers say.

Although Double-N Potatoes based in Burlington, Wash., offers potatoes in a mix of bulk cartons and consumer packs, the 5-pound yellow and 5-pound red consumer packs are the most popular packaging option, said Ryan Shols, chief financial officer.

“[Packaging] definitely picked up during the pandemic,” he said, when many consumers turned to bags or clamshells rather than bulk product because of perceived hygiene issues.

Sales of packaged potatoes have held steady since that time, Schols said.

Pack styles often vary by region, said Sean Davenport, marketing manager for Pasco, Wash.-based Potandon Produce.

Although Potandon sells a lot of 50-pound cartons to retailers, foodservice operators and wholesalers, 60% of the potatoes the company ships are in consumer packs.

Pack sizes range from 1- and 1.5-pound bags of mini potatoes up to 15- or 20-pound poly bags. Five- and 10-pounders are the most popular sizes.

Packing bags is more expensive than putting potatoes into cardboard cartons, Davenport said.

Different machines are used and more labor is required to produce 5- or 10-pound bags and pack them into cartons, he said.

Consumer bags now account for 40% to 50% of potato packaging from Iona, Idaho-based Eagle Eye Produce, which grows potatoes in Mattawa, Wash., said Coleman Oswald, director of sales.

But during the pandemic, they made up about 90% of the company’s potato packout. That’s because indoor dining was shut down as well as ballparks, stadiums and other public venues, and the vast majority of Eagle Eye’s potatoes went to retail customers.

“Almost everything we were packing had to go into a poly bag for consumers for a while,” Oswald said. “It slowly drifted back to a more normal 50-50 blend.”

Although corrugated material used for 50-pound cartons is expensive, it’s more expensive to pack poly bags, he said.

“It is a slower process to pack for retail into consumer bags versus when you can just put everything into a 50-pound box,” Oswald said. “Even though your packaging costs are higher, you make up for all of that with your efficiencies when packing bulk versus small packs.”

There’s also the overage factor. A 3-pound poly bag of potatoes, for example, must contain at least 3 pounds of product. To ensure the proper weight, packers routinely pack over the minimum requirement.

“You have to have a little extra in each of those packs,” he said. “With 16 3-pound bags, all 16 have to have to have a little overage, so you end up giving away more potatoes.”

The same thing goes for a 50-pound box, Oswald said.

“But if we put 51 pounds in, we’re good to go,” he said.

Although sustainability seems to be on everyone’s minds these days, potato grower-shippers say not many of their customers ask about sustainable packaging. But that doesn’t mean packers have not adopted sustainable practices.

“To keep working for 60 or 70 years like we have, you have to be sustainable,” Schols said. “You want to use that land over and over again.”

Only “a couple of retailers here and there” ask about Potandon’s sustainable packaging, Davenport said. Potandon reviews packaging every year, and sustainability is something the company keeps in mind when discussing packaging upgrades, he said.