Tuberosum Technologies | Company official sees several markets for new, colourful potatoes
BRODERICK, Sask. — Potatoes so tiny that gardeners probably wouldn’t bother to bring them in from the garden fetch a premium in grocery stores for the Little Potato Co.
The Edmonton-based company started growing these smallest of potatoes, known as creamers, in 1996 and has since expanded to meet demand from consumers who like the convenience of the product.
But these aren’t just immature potatoes from regular varieties.
Creamers range in diameter from about two to four centimetres at maturity. Sold pre-washed, the potatoes don’t require peeling and can be boiled, grilled, roasted or cooked in the microwave.
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The little potato continues to evolve at a research centre near Broderick.
Company co-founder Jacob Vanderschaaf established Tuberosum Technologies Inc. to take potato breeding to another level. Work there is focusing on unique varieties, including those with different flesh colours.
TTI has commercialized seven varieties of little potatoes.
General manager Joel Vanderschaaf said researchers are working to put more potatoes on more plates. Instead of 10 tubers per plant, there could be four times that many.
“We wanted to tie genetics to end use,” he told a recent open house and field day.
It means sourcing varieties from around the world, where potatoes are far more than the red, white and russet that North Americans know.
“That’s not fair to the potato,” Vanderschaaf said.
TTI researchers are working on varieties with flesh colours ranging from red to blue to purple to almost-black.
The company and grower partners planted 2,000 acres to creamers in Saskatchewan last year.
Vanderschaaf said potato consumption has been declining, but the little potatoes represent a growing segment within the industry.
“We’re not just breeding with blinders on,” he added.
The company believes little potatoes, and the use of true potato seed rather than tubers, could help address hunger and poverty around the world.
In addition to convenience, nutritional value and the potential for vast yield increases, the plants are also highly disease resistant.
Rick Green, vice-president of technology at Saskatoon’s POS Bio-Sciences, said the company will analyze the components of TTI’s little potatoes this fall to establish potential value-added ingredients.
One of them could be a red potato extract to replace artificial colour in other food, he said.
In 2011, natural colours surpassed artificial in the $1.55 billion colour market, he told the open house.
