Frito Lay features the farmers

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

So far there have been no requests for autographs. Then again, personal fame isn't the goal behind an Alliston farmer's appearance on television and YouTube. She's doing it for the potatoes.

Ruth Vander Zaag, 26, who farms with her husband and parents near Alliston, is one of several potato farmers from across Canada participating in a campaign to promote Frito Lay Canada's potato chips. Vander Zaag and her family grow 1,100 acres of potatoes and sell to the company.   

"The buyer we deal with, one day he just called to ask if I wanted to be on the commercial (promoting the chips) and I said OK," says Vander Zaag. One commercial launched in April. The Murphy family, who also farms potatoes near Alliston, is featured in another commercial that was launched last year. A website describes the farmers who appear in the commercials.

"We felt it was only fitting to put the spotlight on the people and communities behind our Lay's products and celebrate the contributions they've made to the brand," says Claudia Calderon, the company's senior marketing manager in comments forwarded in an email by public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard Canada Inc. People "might not be aware of how many farmers or communities across the country play a role in their creation," she writes. (There are 40 growers who do.)

Statistics Canada indicates that in 2010 Canada produced more than 4.4 million tonnes of potatoes with more than 1.1 million tonnes produced in P.E.I. Ontario was the country's sixth largest producer with 370,591 tonnes.

In 2003, Canadians each consumed on average 2.55 kilograms of potato chips, a StatsCan report indicates. That's nearly 60 single serving 1.5-ounce bags. BF