North Dakota Potatoes FINALLY Make It McBig!

It's official! The Dakota Russet has been accepted by McDonald's french fry program.

It has to be the dream of every potato breeder to make the grade as a fast food french fry. It may not sound glamorous, but every producer needs a steady market for their product, and what's more steady than french fries flying out of a McDonald's drive-through?

It took NDSU's Susie Thompson twenty years to develop a potato for McDonald's

It takes a lot to meet the requirements to produce the color, taste, and texture that make McDonald's french fries so addictively delicious. Farm and Ranch Guide details the long path Susie had to pave to make North Dakota potatoes finally fry-worthy. Don't get me wrong, plenty of North Dakota potatoes become fries every year- but the Dakota Russet is the first of ours to enter through the Golden Arches.

Team Potato targeted its efforts at the fast food giant.

“I found that we were not doing a great job of addressing the needs of our frozen processing growers, so have tried to bolster our efforts in this segment, given that more than 65 percent of potatoes produced in our area are produced for frozen processing, including french fry production,”

It's so much more than price and availability. Its flavor and texture as well as growability and performance when processing. Daniel Roche, Mcdonald's global quality system manager, welcomed the Dakota Russet to their fry family. He added there are only eight varieties accepted by McDonald's in all of North America.