Potato Chips are a Work of Art Figured Out Down to a Science

The next time you tear open a brightly colored bag of Lay’s potato chips, take a bite of the chip and really pay attention. Notice the salty crunch, the delicious texture, the bright color, and the lovely size and roundness, because it’s likely you’re crunching on a Washington-grown potato — one that was harvested by local farmers, sorted to ensure it’s the best size and quality, and quickly shipped to processing plants, where it was cut and fried into one of the country’s favorite snack foods.

Allied Potato Northwest is a potato growing and packing facility in Pasco, Washington, that ships potatoes to chip companies throughout the United States, including Frito-Lay and Kettle, as well as worldwide. According to Derek Davenport, the owner and director of Northwest Operations for Allied Potato Northwest, about 90% of potato chips in the U.S. were made from potatoes grown on Washington farms like his.

“The odds are very, very high that you’re getting local potatoes in these bags of chips,” said Davenport, pointing to a shelf of potato chip bags behind him.

Washington Grown host Kristi Gorenson and the rest of the team toured Allied in Season 11, and Davenport gave a sneak peek into how a potato goes from the ground to the snack bowl. Allied grows specific potatoes — called chippers — that are special because they have lower sugar content than other potatoes, which means they remain white after they’re fried, the ideal color for a commercial chip. In addition, Davenport explained, the potatoes are rounder and grow to be the perfect chip size.

“Good-quality potatoes are easy to sell,” he said.

When the potatoes are ripe and ready for picking, a giant harvesting machine brings them from the farm to the processing facility, where they are unloaded onto a conveyor belt and washed with a series of sprayers. Employees sort through the clean chippers to pull out rocks or any damaged potatoes, and machines sift out any potatoes that are too big for chips.

“You want something within a medium-size range, where a person can eat the chip,” said Davenport. “We don’t want a massive potato chip in a bag, because I can’t fit that in my mouth.”

The rejected potatoes are sorted into bins, and the large spuds are then sold to food distribution centers or restaurants, where they will be cooked and made into mashed potatoes, french fries, or other delicious dishes.

“No potato goes to waste,” said Davenport. After sorting, the approved chippers are sent down the line, loaded onto trucks, and delivered to the processors to be cut, fried, packaged, and sold. The process is fast, and hundreds of thousands of potatoes are sorted and shipped in Allied’s facilities every day.

“A semi load is about 25 to 30 tons,” said Davenport. “And we can run 25 to 30 semis through here in a day— so that’s a lot of potatoes.”

In a bright commercial kitchen, employees cut potatoes into tiny slivers with an industrial slicer, then fry them in bubbling oil, checking to see if the sugar content is correct based on how dark the chips come out of the fryer.

“This is our quality-control lab,” Davenport said. “We try and re-enact basically how that processing plant will fry them up. The only thing here is, we don’t get to put them in a fancy bag and have all the good flavors that they have.”

Davenport crunched on a freshly fried potato chip laid out on a paper towel.

“Still a little hot,” he said, wincing.

“You think?” Gorenson retorted, laughing.

Davenport grabbed another chip and smiled. “You know what they say — once you start, you can’t stop.”