Chapter 5: Why the fries taste good

1. Who is J.R. Simplot? What connection does J.R. Simplot have to the fast food industry?

J.R. Simplot built an empire based on french fries. He was born in 1909 and grew up working hard on the farm. When he went threw a rebellion stage against his father, he dropped out of school at the age of 15 and left home. He then found a job at a potato warehouse where he sorted potatoes for 9-10 hours a day for 30 cents an hour. When he was 16 he became a potato farmer and in 1928 purchased an electric potato sorter. Soon he was buying, selling, opening warehouses, and forming relationships with commodities brokers nationwide. Simplot soon became the largest shipper of potatoes in the West. During World War II he sold dehydrated onions to the U.S. army and by the end he was growing his own potatoes, fertilizing them with his own phosphate, processing them at his own factories, shipping them in boxes from his lumber yards, and feeding the leftover potato scraps to his cattle, all at the age of 36. After the war he invested in frozen food technology and assembled chemists to invent the frozen french fry. He started selling frozen french fries in 1953. His sales were initially disappointing but grew better eventually when fast food resturants started to purchase and use his fries.
J.R. Simplot is the man that invented and sold the frozen french fry, to which fast food restaurants around the globe are feeding to their customers.

2. How have the potato farms in Idaho changed in the last 25 years or so?

Idaho's potato farmers are now facing enormous pressure to get bigger or get out of the business. Farms in Idaho over the past 25 years, have lost about half of its potato farmers. The amount of land devoted to potatoes has increased and family farms are giving way to corporate farms that stretch thousands of acres. Those who have been driven off the land are most often hired to manage them.

3. What is PGI and how successful has it been at organizing potato farmers?

PGI stands for Potato Growers of Idaho and is a nonprofit orgainzation that supplies market information to farmers and helps them negotiate contracts with processors. The PGI hasn't been very successful at organizing potato farmers because the organization needs at least three-quarters of them as members to gain real bargaining power and right now they only have about half. Also not many processors are buying potatoes and when they get close they are underminded by one of the bigger processors.

4. What is the "fallacy of composition"?

The "fallacy of composition" is saying that a food item is, for example, 100% all natural beef is supposedly better for them. The person person eating this "100% all natural beef" thinks that it's good for them compared to a greasy hamburger, consumers prefer to eat something they think is healthier for them.

5. What makes McDonald's french fries taste different from the fries of other fast food restaurants?

The book doesn't tell what makes the french fries taste exactly differnet from the fries of another place but the author revealed that McDonald's did acknowledge that it's fries derive some of their characteristic flavor from "animal products."


6. What are some of the similarities and some of the diferences between "artificial flavors" and "natural flavors?" Where is the "flavor industry" located?

A natural flavor is not necessarily healthier or purer than an artificial one and artificial flavors sell at much lower prices. Both types of flavors are now manufactured at the same chemical plants. Natural flavors and artificial flavors sometimes contain exactly the same chemicals, produced through different methods. The New Jersey Turnpiek runs through the heart of the flavor industy. The world's largest flavor company is in Dayton, New Jersey.