Potatoes and onions are seen as classic commodity crops by many growers, who place too much emphasis on growing and harvesting their products as inexpensively as possible so that they can sell at lower prices.

While that approach may work for some, Fresh Solutions Network sees the equation differently. FSN feels that only focusing on squeezing down costs can actually cost retailers more, by short-changing them on quality, innovation and marketing support.

These areas — product quality, innovation and marketing support — are the three pillars that Fresh Solutions Network is using to help its retail customers to prosper. FSN believes the best breakthroughs — in products and in business — arrive at the intersection of insights and collaboration, so category data are analyzed and developed into insights to develop innovative products and strategic solutions.

"We think the value proposition for retailers has changed and that many of the ways potato and onion suppliers continue to try to capture market share may be a thing of the past," Kathleen Triou, president and chief executive officer of FSN, said in a press release. "They fixate on driving out costs to win business, to the point that their packaging is ineffective and their marketing support is non-existent. Fresh Solutions Network's approach gives retailers unprecedented access to competitive insights, to collaborative innovation, and ultimately to optimal assortments. For example, we recently collaborated with a regional retailer to strategize an optimized assortment that delivered a 7 percent sales increase and stole market share from their competition over a six-month pilot program."

Fresh Solutions Network has reinvented the "supply-and-buy" model by focusing on a direct-supply "dream team," an invitation-only network of potato and onion growers and shippers with superior products and trustworthy track records who personally own the land, work the soil and pack the product.

Many of the long-held ways of buying produce mean retailers may not know where their potatoes and onions are coming from, and that puts quality and accountability at risk. FSN customers always know exactly what product they're buying and which grower they're buying it from.

FSN members are accountable for quality and service — to each other and to their retail customers — because it is literally their own farms that are at stake.

Fresh Solutions Network Partners grow, pack, sell and deliver potatoes and onions directly to their retail and foodservice customers, providing seamless, transparent product supply and service. Fresh Solutions Network, LLC partners are Sterman Masser, Inc. (Masser Potato Farms and Keystone Potato Products in Sacramento and Hegins, PA), Michael Family Farms Inc. (Urbana, OH), Basin Gold Cooperative Inc. (Pasco, WA), Green Thumb Farms Inc. (Fryeburg, ME), Red Isle Potato Growers Ltd. (Prince Edward Island, Canada), NoKota Packers Inc. (Buxton, ND) and Sun-Glo of Idaho Inc. (Sugar City, ID).