DENVER —The United States Potato Board (USPB) partnered with Produce for Better Health (PBH) in 2012 to create new dishes showcasing how potatoes could easily help meet the USDA’s MyPlate recommendations of making half your plate fruits and vegetables. It resulted in three new dishes with healthy and balanced nutrition profiles. Both organizations fully leveraged these new dishes throughout their social media properties. The surprise is how this “Half Your Plate” partnership, more than a year later, continues to produce value to the potato industry. Just during April 2013, USDA featured two of the three potato meals as recommendations to consumers on the www.ChooseMyPlate.gov website.
“Potato Skins w/Buffalo Chicken” and “Easy Oven Packet Caribbean Tilapia w/Pears & Carnival Roasted Potatoes” were selected to join 11 other PBH healthy plates on the "Healthy Eating Tips" section of the site. This section provides consumers with sample menus and recipes to get them following the MyPlate guidelines. In addition, both recipes were listed under the MyPlate On Campus section, which provides college students, staff and faculty the resources and skills for healthier eating habits.
This is an example of how the USPB is working to improve nutritional attitudes by promoting healthy, versatile and tasty potatoes throughout its nutrition influencer network.
For more information, visit the USPB Consumer Nutrition and Public Relations webpage.
For more information on the USPB as the nation’s potato marketing organization, positioned as the “catalyst for positive change,” and the central organizing force in implementing programs that will increase demand for potatoes, please visit www.uspotatoes.com.
David Fairbourn is Manager, Industry Communications & Policy, at the United States Potato Board in Denver. The mission of the USPB is to increase demand for potatoes and potato products through an integrated promotion program, thereby providing US producers with expanding markets for their production. David can be contacted at 303-369-7783 or david.fairbourn@uspotatoes.com. For complete information about the programs, ROI results, resources and tools available to all members of the industry through the USPB, please visit www.uspotatoes.com. The United States Potato Board—Maximizing Return on Grower Investment.
Source: United States Potato Board