Peatland Reds goes year-round; offers wild rice
Peatland Reds goes year-round; offers wild rice
Peatland Reds, Inc., located in Trail, MN, has expanded to offer customers year-round supplies of red, russet and Yukon potatoes, according to Dennis Magnell, general manager and part owner.
Magnell said the firm has diversified to serving retailers and thus is offering a wider range of retail packs in paper and poly bags.
Two bins of its red storage have been upgraded with air conditioning to extend the firm’s red shipping season to be year-round. New humidifiers are also extending Peatland Reds’ potato shelf life and the firm is stacking its bins to be 12 feet deep, vs. the traditional 19 feet to reduce the pressure on the spuds.
“We ship to over 50 grocery stores already,” with those stores in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota. This so far represents “a very small percentage” of Peatland’s total sales but is a step in a new direction. Retail sales expansion will continue for the firm. Consumer interest in “locally-grown” produce is helping with this effort, he noted.
The cost of transporting other potatoes to the Upper Midwest “gives us a lot to work with” in selling within the region.
Peatland Reds enjoyed a good harvest this season and the quality is good, but the yields were down 25 percent because of an unusually dry growing season. Peatland is seeing a concentration of a-sizes and a shortage of red b-sizes because “the second set was not there” with the dry fields.
Peatland rotates potatoes with wild rice paddies “so we also sell wild rice now,” Magnell indicated. The Minnesota firm packs wild rice in one-pound packages and 2.75-ounce packs for quick-cook packaging. These rice fields are flooded in the spring and then drained in July and harvested a little later than wheat. “Every four or five years we rotate with potatoes,” he said.
The packaged rice has a three-year shelf life.
Peatland offers the wild rice to its retail customers for delivery with Peatland potatoes.
