The potato business has changed since 1928 when Karen Guile-Caron's grandparents started Peaslee's Vermont Potatoes in Guildhall. Now, Guile-Caron is trying to bring her 60-acre family business into the new local food economy.
"We're not as sexy as a lot of those other things, like cheese and beer," she says. Hospitals, schools and college campuses are interested, but storage and labor costs put local, whole potatoes at a disadvantage. To help, Peaslee's has been upgrading their storage barn and working with the nonprofit Vermont Food Venture Center in Hardwick to create more convenient, cost-effective, minimally processed potatoes, like cubes, that can go straight from freezer to oven after a quick toss in oil and seasonings.
-Reprinted with permission from Vermont Life magazine
Watch a video below — courtesy of food writer Melissa Pasanen — which shows harvested potatoes being sorted for storage at Peaslee's:
