What's New

New website

As a fan of the Little Potato Company, you’ll be happy to know that we’re updating our website at www.littlepotatoes.com. The new site will be filled with loads of new and exciting content like gorgeous recipes, nutritional facts and enhanced information on our seven unique varieties.
We’re also pleased to announce that the site will be available in English and French. We’ll be kicking off the new website with some fanfare – including a fun recipe contest – so be sure to watch for it in May 2008. Ta daa!!

Sign up a friend!

We always try to bring fun, useful and interesting information to our customers through our website and e-newsletter. If you agree that there’s an amazing amount of good stuff to say about potatoes, why not let your friends in on the secret and tell them to sign up for our newsletter! Just go to littlepotatoes.com and click on “Join our Fan Club”.

LPC tops Alberta’s best business performers lists

It’s been a busy few months at the Little Potato Company. We’re thrilled to announce that we’re sharing the spotlight with some of Alberta’s best-run businesses this year, having won and been nominated for a number of prestigious business awards.

For starters, LPC won the award for Leader in Safety for the Fruit and Vegetable Packaging and Processing Industry by the Workers Compensation Board – the top honour for the company with the lowest accident incident rate in a particular industry in Alberta.

We were also a finalist for the 2007 Alberta Business Awards of Distinction in the area of Innovation in Agriculture. In addition, we’re in the running for Alberta Venture magazine’s Alberta’s Best Workplace for New Canadians category. The winner of this last award is scheduled to be announced this month's issue of Alberta Venture magazine.

We’re very proud of this recognition in a field of Alberta food producers that are contributing so much to the economy and the culinary scene in Alberta. We might be tooting our own horn a bit, but all this recognition wouldn’t be possible without the support of loyal customers like you. Thank you for helping our “Little” Potato Company grow and flourish!

What' Cooking

Little Potato of the Month:

Blushing Belle

Choosing the potato of the month is no easy task. With so many delicious varieties how can you choose just one?

The Blushing Belle is one of the rare varieties available only through The Little Potato Company. Rose-coloured on the outside and yellow on the inside, this potato variety looks as good as it tastes. The Blushing Belle can be roasted, barbequed or boiled, making it a versatile addition to any meal.

Smashed potatoes with
almond butter and peppered steak

It is hard to resist a delicious steak and potato meal. To serve, add a fresh garden salad and a nice drop of your favourite red wine. This recipe is great for a casual evening at home or when friends drop in.

16 to 20 BLUSHING BELLE POTATOES
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sliced almonds
3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
4 New York or beef fillet steaks
olive oil
salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Cook potatoes in a large pot of salted water over medium-high heat for about 15 minutes or until tender; drain. Press potatoes with a potato masher until they are squashed but not mashed.

Melt butter in a small saucepan pan over medium heat. Add almonds, cook, stirring occasionally, until almonds are lightly browned. Pour almond butter over potatoes, add chives and toss to combine. Serve immediately.

Meanwhile, brush steaks with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook on heated grill, barbecue or pan for about 5 minutes each side or until cooked as desired. Serve with hot smashed potatoes. Serves 4.

For more delicious, easy recipes
visit our website at www.littlepotatoes.com.

Stomach Ache? Eat a Potato

Potatoes have healing qualities that cure many ailments

Besides being delicious and highly nutritious, potatoes also have medicinal properties. Potatoes are known to ease the pain from ulcers, soothe dry skin and skin inflammations, relieve aches and pains, and help soften dry skin.

To use potatoes to soothe an ulcer, first wash and grate several red skinned potatoes. Other coloured potatoes will work but red skinned works the best for this purpose. Put grated potatoes into cheesecloth and squeeze the cloth to remove drain the juice. Drink Health officials also consider potato juice to be a liver remedy and can help with gallstones and other gallbladder problems. Another way to get juice from a potato is to slice the potato, sprinkle with salt, leave the potato overnight and collect the juice in the morning. People even apply potato juice to the temples as a headache remedy.

In the past, people used warm mashed potatoes wrapped in a cloth to ease their muscles. To ease a burn or scald, apply a slice of raw potato to the affected area. This remedy also works for dry, chapped skin as well.

So the next time you have a headache, stomach ache, chapped skin, sore muscles, or you want a delicious meal you need not look further than your bag of little potatoes.

March is Nutrition Month!

The Canadian Cancer Society has declared March as Nutrition Month. Research shows the importance of healthy eating habits and the prevention of cancer, and including potatoes in your diet (as opposed to white pasta or rice) is an easy way to increase the nutrients and fiber in your diet. Consider that a single serving of potatoes contains:

When you compare the nutritional content of potatoes against other common starches, the healthy choice is obvious:

For more information on Nutrition Month and great healthy eating tips and recipes, visit the Canadian Cancer Society website at www.cancer.ca.

The Global Potato

International Year of the Potato

In our last issue of the LPC newsletter we brought you some information on the International Year of the Potato, an initiative launched by the United Nations to bring awareness to the importance of the potato as a global food source. Now just a few short months into 2008, the UN has teamed up with international government, organizations and businesses to bring the potato and the hope of a sustainable food supply into some of the poorest, hungriest areas in the world.

One often thinks of the UN as a large, faraway organization knee-deep in foreign policy as opposed to the eating habits of everyday Canadians. But what makes the International Year of the Potato so special is because it’s truly grass roots, supporting local businesses that promote the message of the campaign in their communities. So, the Little Potato Company is glad to pitch in to help the UN in our own backyard through donations of potatoes to local charities that help the hungry. Watch for more details in the coming weeks on www.littlepotatoes.com.

International Women’s Week

March 2-8, 2008

Today’s women are busier than ever, often juggling a career, family, pets, in-laws, yoga, hockey practice, dance lessons – and be the very best mom or wife we can be by making sure our loved ones are eating right and keeping healthy.

None of us have time to ‘waste’ (really, when was the last time you sat down with a trashy novel and a box of bon-bons?). So with the hectic pace of today’s life, we have to find short cuts without making sacrifices, to make sure that any extra time goes to the really important and fulfilling stuff like spending time with family.

At The Little Potato Company, we truly believe that the biggest benefit we bring people is the opportunity to spend more time together. Consider if your family eats potatoes three times a week, by choosing our little potatoes you’ll save at least an hour in peeling and cooking time. And sometimes an hour spent playing a game with the kids is all it takes to bring the family back together again.

The Un-Irish History of the Potato

With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, one automatically thinks of leprechauns, clover and (probably) potatoes. And though many think potatoes are from Ireland, they are not – they were a staple of the South American diet many centuries before landing in the fields of Ireland. The potato was grown, eaten and even worshipped by the Inca; in fact, archaeologists have found potato

remains buried with their dead dating back to 500BC (now that’s our kind of people!!)

The potato did not make its way to Europe until the mid 1500’s via the Spanish explorers who returned from South America with the tubers instead of the gold they went in search for. From Spain, the potato made its way across Europe over the next few decades. Wherever the potato was introduced, it was considered weird, poisonous, and downright evil. In France and elsewhere, the potato was accused of causing a multitude of diseases, early death, and of destroying the soil where it grew.

The potato was first brought to Ireland in 1589 by Sir Walter Raleigh, the famous British explorer and historian. Legend has it that he made a gift of the potato plant to Queen Elizabeth I. The local gentry were invited to a royal banquet featuring the potato in every course. Unfortunately the cooks, uneducated in the matter of potatoes, tossed out the lumpy-looking tubers and brought to the royal table a dish of boiled

stems and leaves (which are poisonous), which promptly made everyone deathly ill. The potatoes were then banned from court. It took until the mid-1700s for the potato to become accepted into the European diet and brought back to the Americas.

The tragedy of the Irish potato famine didn’t strike for another 100 years, but by then the potato had become such a staple in the Irish diet that it was said that “cooking any food other than a potato had become a lost art. Women hardly boiled anything but potatoes. The oven had become unknown after the introduction of the potato prior to the Great Starvation.”

The Great Starvation does indeed drive home the importance of the potato as being capable of sustaining a nation, and of the significance of projects like the International Year of the Potato.

Source: http://whatscookingamerica.net
/History/PotatoHistory.htm

In Your Neighbourhood

The Little Potato Company will be participating in the following consumer and industry expos in the coming months – if you’re in the neighbourhood please stop by our booth!

Where can you find us?

Looking for little potatoes? You can find our delicious varieties at the following major grocery chains and wholesalers across Canada:

A & P / Dominion
Calgary Co-Op
Canada Safeway
Cooper’s Foods
Costco
Federated Co-op Stores
Loblaw's / Westfair
Quality Foods
Save-On-Foods / Overwaitea
Sobeys (Ontario and Quebec)
The Grocery People/The Produce People
Thrifty Foods

EAT! Vancouver

Eat Vancouver is Canada's largest consumer food, beverage and cooking show, expo, and festival. The food expo features hundreds of food, beverage and kitchen goods exhibitors, wineries, breweries, restaurants, chocolatiers, cooking demonstrations, wine and cheese seminars, cookbook authors, chef competitions and barbecue and chili cook-offs.

BC Place Stadium
Vancouver, BC
May 23- 25, 2008
www.eat-vancouver.com

Edmonton Woman’s Show

A fabulous show with something for every woman. The Edmonton Woman’s Show brings two full days of fun, fashion, cooking, demonstrations, information, sampling and exciting guest speakers.

Northlands AgriCom
Edmonton, AB
April 12-13, 2008
www.woman.edmontonshows.com

Canadian Produce Marketing Association

As host of Canada’s leading fruit and vegetable convention & trade show, CPMA provides you the opportunity to connect with your peers and enhance your business opportunities in Canada and abroad, while offering a unique combination of education and networking opportunities with over 4100 industry leaders. Experience over 330 innovative exhibit booths; come see what’s new in the industry.

TELUS Convention Centre
Calgary, AB
May 14-16, 2008
www.cpma.ca