Search
Better Farming OntarioBetter PorkBetter Farming Prairies

Better Farming Ontario Featured Articles

Better Farming Ontario magazine is published 11 times per year. After each edition is published, we share featured articles online.


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

Current Issue

October 2025

Better Farming Magazine

Farms.com Breaking News

Save Time and Costs with the Portable MiniCombine

Friday, September 26, 2025

MiniCombine Delivers Fast and Accurate Grain Sampling The MiniCombine is a portable, fully self-contained electric unit designed to simplify grain sampling with speed and precision. Suitable for a wide range of crops including wheat, barley, sorghum, oats, soybeans, peas, field beans,... Read this article online

IPM Plowing Match Winners Celebrated

Friday, September 26, 2025

Congratulations to Robert Daniels, of Berwick, Nova Scotia on winning the IPM Champion Horse Plow Person Award with 459 points; Kim Hadwen, Belleville, was the reserve. Congratulation as well to Brian Davenport from Owen Soundwho is the winner of the IPM Champion Tractor Award with 570.5... Read this article online

Ontario Students to Join New AgRobotics Challenge

Thursday, September 25, 2025

The Western Fair District is set to host a new AgRobotics Challenge, giving Ontario high school students the chance to tackle real-world issues in modern agriculture. Created in collaboration with the Ontario Council for Technology Education (OCTE) and the Western Fair Association... Read this article online

BF logo

It's farming. And it's better.

 

a Farms.com Company

Subscriptions

Subscriber inquiries, change of address, or USA and international orders, please email: subscriptions@betterfarming.com or call 888-248-4893 x 281.


Article Ideas & Media Releases

Have a story idea or media release? If you want coverage of an ag issue, trend, or company news, please email us.

Follow us on Social Media

 

Sign up to a Farms.com Newsletter

 

DisclaimerPrivacy Policy2025 ©AgMedia Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Back To Top