“Wisconsin is a great state for growing potatoes” Jim said.  “We’ll run them all the way from July until about February 15th.” To keep the supply of quality fresh potatoes going, even in winter, Delicious starts with Florida potatoes, then follows the sun into Texas and Arizona, and on into Missouri.  After the Wisconsin potato season, Delicious gets its product from North Dakota’s famed Red River Valley farms.

Wisconsin’s Snowden potato, a product of the State of Wisconsin Agriculture Department and the Wisconsin Potato Growers Association, is a Delicious favorite. It’s very snowy (low sugar content); it’s also very disease resistant.

“The farmers and growers have perfected excellent potatoes.  We count on our brokers and farmers to make sure we have really good quality,” said Jim, singling out the Plainfield, Hancock and Antigo, Wisconsin areas in particular.

The big baker you may visualize as the ideal potato is not what Delicious uses, because it has too high a sugar content and too high a percentage of water for the potato chip making process.  “You couldn’t take one of our potatoes home - you couldn’t get it to mash - it’s hard even cutting them up for American Fries,” said Jim.  “we’re looking for 80-90% pulp and 20 or 10% water.”

One hundred pounds of potatoes with a 50% water and 50% pulp makeup will yield about 18 pounds of potato chips, and perhaps seven pounds of that is oil. Delicious uses a potato that has 90% pulp; 100 pounds of these potatoes yield 32 pounds of potato chips, with probably eight pounds of that being high grade commercial corn oil.
 

By utilizing the specialty potato, yield is increased; frying time is reduced; the number of loads needed is lessened; as is the labor cost per load; and the amount of energy used is reduced - everything is cut by one third. Also, using potatoes with low starch or sugar content helps eliminate burning - producing the “golden” chip that Delicious strives for.  “We know how thin to slice them for different potatoes - we want tenderness - we want crunch, we want them tender so they’ll melt in your mouth, “explained Jim.