Japanese potato chip maker to sell potato-growing kits

Give someone a bag of chips and they can eat for a minute, but teach them to bag of chips….

There’s been a troubling trend in education recently. Just the other day I asked my daughter, “Where do potato chips come from?” and she answered, “The store.”

I mean, seriously? The very notion that potato chips are made out of ground up and flattened stores – which are clearly made of steel, glass, and cement – is downright laughable to academics such as myself, but apparently this is what kids believe nowadays.

That’s why I’m glad major snack-maker Calbee has decided to raise awareness of potatoes by selling kits that make it easy for people of all ages to grow their own. Two products that work in tandem to grow potatoes were released by Calbee on 15 December to home and garden retailers in the Kyushu area of Japan.

The first is Poroshiri which is also the name of Calbee’s own in-house potato variety that gives them the desired qualities to make their wildly popular chips. One bag of Poroshiri contains two seed potatoes to get your garden started.

Note that these are “seed potatoes” and not “potato seeds.” Potato plants do produce seeds, but due to pollination their results can be unpredictable.

On the other hand, if you take a potato from one plant and plant it like a seed, then you can get a genetically identical plant that will in turn produce more potatoes with that same Calbee charm.

▼ Seed potatoes

But to do that you’ll need some fertile soil first, and that’s where Potato Bag comes it. Although it resembles a big bag of Calbee potato chips, picking up this 10-kilo (22-pound) sack will quickly reveal that it’s actually full of coconut peat and palm mulch.

This soil also contains fertilizer, making it easy to start growing right away inside the bag itself. Potato Bag has drainage holes built in so you simply need to cut open the top and roll down the sides. After that, just plant your seed potatoes, water as necessary, and behold as the miracle of life takes place before your very eyes.

Even better, all of the substances used inside Potato Bag are 100 percent plant-based, which means it can be safely disposed of in accordance with your local trash collection rules and regulations. These products are being sold through the Protoleaf horticulture soil company and can eventually be found all over Japan when the proper season comes around.

It certainly would make for a fun hobby to try and make some Calbee potato chips, literally from the ground up. As for me, I can finally teach my kids that potato chips don’t just grow on trees. The cold hard truth is that they actually spring up magically from the ground.

Source: Calbee, Calbee Jagaimo Diary, Protoleaf, PR Times
Top image: Calbee
Insert images: PR Times
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