By this time maybe a few of you are experiencing french fry withdrawal. I love ‘em, and I’m not alone. We’re now up to about 30 pounds of them per person per year.
Meanwhile, Americans have reduced their consumption of fresh potatoes steadily this century.
It’s partly because we are spending more on food outside the home.
This chart from AFBF was just updated and we’re now spending $50B per year more eating out and the trend shows no sign of changing. Or didn’t at least.
Another factor is deep frying is a pain at home. It requires a two-step cooking and drying process for best results.
Given the demand for fries, an enormous industry specializes in frozen french fry production, starting at the farm. The frozen fries you see dumped in the oil at a fast food restaurant have been carefully bred and prepared just for that use, including drying and/or blanching. Moreover, fries are made from these potatoes – the Idaho Russet Burbank. While these potatoes can be used fresh, for baking and some other slower cooking recipes, the same qualities that make them perfect for fries make them problematic for other cooking methods according to a local cook. Most fresh potatoes are the familiar red and yellow ones.
The restaurant shutdown due to COVID19 has thus plugged the major consumption channel for potatoes. Fries don’t lend themselves to carryout well either, since microwaving them back to hot after the drive home doesn’t work as well as say, orange chicken. And eating in a parking lot is a sad workaround. I’ve done that research.
Not only is it one of the products having the most difficulty changing distribution channels from restaurants to groceries, the poor substitutability of the potatoes means possible spot shortages of reds and yellows, while somewhere warehouses of frozen fries are packed to the rafters. Nor can growers easily or quickly shift varieties to respond this changed demand. Besides, what happens on the other side of the isolation period? Switching production or processing of frozen fries carries an enormous risk even if it is possible. The divergence between what we eat at home and what we eat outside the home may be more responsible for unexpectedly hard to find items than hoarding.
Perfecting the french fry has been one of mankind’s major accomplishments in my opinion, but this kind of ultra-specialized food chain has now demonstrated one huge weakness. There are other foods we will not be able to duplicate at home, but for many of us, french fries will be the first craving we satisfy when the restaurant doors reopen.
