ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 21, 1996 TAG: 9608210011
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Marketplace
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL
No need to stockpile quite yet, Tater-Tot fans.
Contrary to a myth that has been circulating in some parts of Southwest Virginia - traceable, it seems, to an uninformed stockboy in a New River Valley supermarket - Ore-Ida has no plans stop making those processed, frozen, deep-fried golden potato nuggets.
The folks at Ore-Ida were flabbergasted to hear that such a rumor was floating around.
"I don't know why anybody would say that," said a company spokesman. They've manufactured Tater-Tots for decades, he said, and the potato snacks are Ore-Ida's best-selling product.
Well, all-righta.
But the Tater-Tot rumor brought up other spud-related questions.
Why, for instance, are potato chips so expensive, when you can buy five pounds of raw potatoes for less than $3 in the grocery store?
Linda McCashion, vice president of marketing for the Denver-based National Potato Promotion Board, said we shouldn't blame the farmers who produce the nation's 4.68 billion pounds of potatoes annually.
"It's not in the raw product," she said. "Potatoes are inexpensive. And they're cheaper for Frito-Lay than for you."
The price starts edging up when you factor in transportation, processing, packaging and advertising costs, according to the Alexandria-based Snack Food Association.
Not to mention the salt, oil and seasonings.
Just like wheat or corn, potatoes are a commodity whose price depends on availability. Potato processors such as Frito-Lay and Ore-Ida contract for their annual potato supply in early spring, before the spuds are planted.
Potato chip producers - "chippers," in industry lingo - buy potatoes grown specifically for that purpose.
Americans bought $4.82 billion - 1.69 billion pounds - of potato chips last year. The dollar amount increased from 1994, but the volume decreased - meaning that the price per pound increased.
In supermarkets, the average price per pound was $2.61 last year, up 5 cents from 1994.
The potato chip is no Johnny-come-lately on the junk food scene. According to the Snack Food Association, they were invented in 1853, when railroad tycoon Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was vacationing at Sarasota Springs, a fashionable New York resort.
One night, so the story goes, he sent his fried potatoes back to the kitchen, complaining that they were too thick. The cook decided to have some fun with the commodore, so he sliced up a batch of paper-thin potatoes, fried them to a crisp and salted them.
Every American knows what a potato chip is. But here's what a thin-sliced, deep-fried, salted piece of potato is called in other nations:
* Swedish: potatis frit
* German: kartoffel chip
* French: pomme de terre chip
* Italian: patatine
* Spanish: frito de pata
* Russian: khrystyashchii kartofel
Americans don't eat nearly as many potatoes as Russians and Europeans do.
But we're still no slouches.
In 1995, we polished off 140.2 pounds of potatoes per person: 49.8 pounds fresh, 58.4 pounds frozen (that's where the Tater-Tots fit in), 17 pounds in chips, 13.3 pounds dehydrated (mashed potato flakes, plus reconstituted chips such as Pringles) and 1.7 pounds canned.
Consumption of frozen potatoes and chips has been increasing steadily since the early 1970s. The biggest growth area these days is "healthy" chips. Frito-Lay, which sells Baked Lays, estimates that 40 percent of its profit increase in 1995 came from sales of low- or no-fat snacks.
The company says the baked chips sell so quickly that grocers sometimes can't keep the product in stock.
And then there's Olestra, the fat substitute that recently won FDA approval - despite its possible side effects, including gastrointestinal problems.
The Snack Food Association's McCashion said she has tried potato chips with Olestra and was pleasantly surprised.
They even have the greasy feel of real chips, she said. Maybe manufacturers will work out the unpleasant effects, she said.
"Even if this isn't it, we're awfully close," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by AP. color. KEYWORDS: MGRby CNB