Pantry Category: 2019 Winner Proper Crisps - Purple & Gold Potatoes with Cracked Pepper & Sea Salt

Photo Credit @pumpkinsintrees

Proper Crisps were awarded as the Grocery (now Pantry) category winner in 2019 for their Purple & Gold Potatoes with Cracked Pepper & Sea Salt crisps.

Not afraid to celebrate vegetables of all shapes and sizes, it's no surprise that Proper Crisps were the first company in New Zealand to use the purple potato for crisps. However, the new concept didn’t come without its challenges! The right crop and quantity were hard to source so after almost six years of extensive research with Massey University, Proper Crisps perfected a variety of purple potato for their products.

Proper Crisps source and grow all their ingredients locally wherever possible, with consideration for the environment. The Nelson-based company didn't want to contribute to plastic matter in the landfill, so the packaging for this product is home compostable!

“It’s a real honour to be recognised by the New Zealand Food Awards for producing truly unique and award-winning crisps. Entering the food awards annually is a fantastic benchmark for us and our products.”

Entry:

1. Product Name

Proper Crisps Purple & Gold Potatoes with Cracked Pepper & Sea Salt launched in our home compostable bag.

2. Product Description

We've mixed purple & gold spuds with cracked peppercorns. Each batch is hand-cooked by our Proper Chefs using Canterbury-grown High Oleic Cold-Pressed Sunflower Oil topped off with a touch of Marlborough Sea Salt from Lake Grassmere. 

 Innovation

Photo Credit @pumpkinsintrees

3. Where did the idea for this product come from?

We decided to give new life to a heritage potato, with amazing colour and contrast with our regular Agria potatoes. As an inclusive brand, we believe in celebrating all colours, shapes and sizes of vegetables and are proudly gluten-free, vegan-friendly, lower sodium, trans-fat-free and GMO-free. This now means we can connect with those who have dietary requirements, as well as those who are more environmentally friendly and health-conscious when purchasing in the FMCG category.  

4. How did you determine the product originality?

There are so many points of originality around this product. Firstly, we are properly proud to announce that we are the first company to use purple potatoes to make our potato crisps. Secondly, we are also using 100% New Zealand (Canterbury-grown) cold-pressed, high oleic sunflower oil, supplied by The Good Oil. We are the first potato crisp brand on the market to use home compostable packaging that is suitable for a domestic compost bin. But it doesn’t stop there! Everything in this bag (except the peppercorns) are 100% New Zealand-sourced ingredients – the potatoes are grown by dedicated growers around New Zealand, the salt is from Lake Grassmere and our packaging comes from a local packaging company in Hamilton. Even the artwork is done by our very talented Proper artist, Ray Bolderson from Mapua, Tasman. This bag is a one-off both inside and outside – its quirky, unique design and its home-grown ingredients combine to make one very original bag indeed! 

5. Did you consider any new technology to your company in the development of this product?

We looked to new uses of existing machinery and product processing. As with new raw materials, we had to set up closer monitoring of all of the growing processes, to make sure we had a crop that would meet our quality requirements. New varieties of potatoes require different crop cycles and storage requirements, which we had to monitor more closely with our supply chain to ensure their progress.

6. What were some of the challenges in developing this product and how did you overcome them?

A huge challenge for us, was finding someone who could produce the quantity of purple potatoes required, and that were also suitable for crisping. We worked directly with our growers to overcome this and supported them with research and development. We’re working with existing license holder of the still-to-be-named Purple Potato, which was a product developed at Massey University with Clint Smith.

The second piece of the puzzle was domestically sourced high oleic sunflower oil and we have continued to work with the same South Island company, and they have perfected their sunflower oil yield. 
  
In order to introduce a rainbow pepper, and work with our technology, we first had to grind all the peppercorns (black, green and pink) in house. Pink was challenging because of its high moisture levels, but we found a way with creative problem solving!