b'Turning Back The ClockA Look Back 25 Years Ago at Excerpts fromThe October 1995 Issue ofThe ValleyPotato Grower MagazineNew $55 Million French Fry ers.ThecompaniesPresidentis The potato acreage in North DakotaPlant Becomes Reality For William(Bill)Clyde,aformer has been shifting the last few yearsNorth Dakota President of Lamb-Weston, and a 25 to virginal grounds around the stareyear veteran of the french fry busi- wherepotatoeshaveneverbeenFollowing about a five year effort by ness. grown. What has driven this shift ispotatogrowersintheJamestown, the need for more irrigated potatoNorthDakotaareatofindanew APF is a limited liability company acres.Theindustryhasseennewsource for potatoes, announcement comprised of Columbia Valleypotato acreage in both the westerncamelateinAugustthatanew partofNorthDakotaaswellasfrench fry processing plantfor that southeasternareas,suchasJames-area is becoming a reality. American town.PrairieFoods,LLC(APF)isbegin-ning construction on aprocessing J.R.SimplotCompany,Grandplant to be located about two miles Forks, North Dakota, has been theeastofJamestown,andhelda major player for potato processinggroundbreakingceremonyon inthestate.CompanyofficialsSeptember 6th for the $55 million thereannouncedintheearlyplant. 1990s,followingathreeyeardroughtintheRedRiverValley,AccordingtoJohnRedmondJr., thattheywouldbeshiftingfromChief Executive Officer of APF, pro- non-irrigated potatoes over a threeductionisexpectedtobeginin year period. This forced many grow-Octoberof1996,followingaone ers to seek irrigatable land for theiryearconstructionperiod.When potatoes,bothintheValleyandoperating at full capacity the facility FoodsInc.ofSyracuse,NewYork, outside it.will produce 215 million pounds of andseveralothermembers.frozen french fries and related pota- Columbia Valley was introduced to The land in the Jamestown area istoproducts,andwillemploy160 theJamestownareain1993by irrigatable.Somefarmersinthatpeople. CentralDakotaGrowersCoopera- area,infact,havepickeduptive, made up of potato growers in Simplot contracts, and thus, have-The plant will cost about 46 million that part of the state. Redmond said been growing potatoes for Simplottoconstruct,andthecompany the introduction to Jamestown was the past two to three years.once operating, will have a capital- veryfortunatesincetheareapos-izationofover$55million.APF sessedcriticalresourcesforfrench DennisE.Kihlstadius,President/plans to purchase about $20 million fry production. CEO of the Red River Valley Potatoworth of potatoes from area grow- Growers Association, which covers14 POTATO GROWER SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020'