L&M Cos. Inc., headquartered in Raleigh, NC, sources potatoes from various growing areas around the country, which gives customers a choice as to where their potatoes come from. But “Idaho potatoes are really important to L&M’s program in potatoes,” according to Ken Stewart, general manager.

“We have a variety of customers that request Idaho potatoes,” Stewart told The Produce News.

“We do ship out of other areas for strategic reasons” such as shipping locations, he said. “But there is a portion of our customer base that requires and requests Idaho potatoes, so it is a really important part of what we do. I would venture to say that a good portion of what we move through the season will be Idaho-grown potatoes.”

L&M has “partnerships in different parts of the country” with potato growers and shippers, Stewart said. “We ship out of Colorado and out of Wisconsin” and also have a partnership in Washington. “We grow our own potatoes in Florida.”

In Idaho, he said, “we are a partner with High Country Potato in Rexburg. We are the exclusive marketing agent for High Country. L&M provides all of the marketing services for High Country. We have a really solid partner in High Country, and we feel very [well] equipped to service the needs of all of our customers. They do a great job there. They are conscious on quality, and we just feel like we have a really good partnership with High Country,” enabling L&M to provide customers with “all the packs and the sizes and they quality” that they need.

This is the second year of L&M’s partnership with High Country, “and we have a long-term arrangement with them going forward into the future,” Stewart said. “We feel we are positioned well to service all sectors of our customer base.”

“Nature’s Delight” is the primary label L&M packs in its potato programs not only at High Country but “at all the places,” Stewart said. But “we pack private labels as well. A lot of retailers like us to pack in their own label.”

Most of L&M’s potatoes for retail customers are packed in standard poly consumer bags, but the company also does individually-wrapped microwavable potatoes. “We are doing more and more of those,” Stewart said.

The company also does “a large amount of foodservice” business, he said. The split between retail and foodservice is about 50/50.

For the 2013 harvest, “our acres at High Country are down minimally,” he said. It is “almost the same” as last year, “which is kind of what we hear from the other people within the state.

The company’s Norkotah harvest was under way, having started just a couple of weeks earlier. “Our yields appear to be very normal, so far,” he said. “We are not finding a lot of large size in our first few fields, but that is somewhat typical of the early harvest,” and it appears that unlike last year, when sizes were larger than usual, this year “the size profile is close to a normal crop.”

L&M expects to move through the Norkotahs early in the season and be shipping predominantly Burbanks by sometime in October, he said.