Sweet Potato Fries to Hit Fast Food World

Sweet potato fries. Photo: Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission

Sweet potatoes, long touted for their nutritional attributes, are soon to make a cameo in the fast food world.

To keep up with the mushrooming demand for sweet potato fries -- a snack which about a decade ago was primarily available from eateries that stocked their condiment caddies with liquid aminos and stuffed their Reubens with tempeh -- ConAgra Foods Lamb Weston has announced plans to build the world's first large-scale facility dedicated to sweet potato processing. According to a release, the Louisiana plant will allow Lamb Weston to meet the sweet potato fry needs of the nation's "largest quick-service restaurant chains."

"Sweet potatoes are a strategic priority for ConAgra foods," CEO Gary Rodkin says in the announcement.

René Simon, director of the Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission, isn't bothered that the deep-fryer has helped turn the spotlight on his state's signature Beauregard sweet taters (which, weirdly, many Louisiana farmers call "yams," a misnomer that entered the Pelican State's vocabulary at the behest of a 1950s marketing exec).

"This is the South," he laughs, telling Slashfood: "Don't we fry everything?"

A spokeswoman for ConAgra declined to tell Slashfood which fast-food restaurants might be using their taters citing confidentiality agreements.

Simon attributes the 20 percent spike in sweet potato consumption over the past five years to the growing popularity of sweet potato fries. He suspects the clubfooted economy has also inspired some eaters to challenge their palates with affordable vegetables they previously considered suspect.

"People are thinking 'let me try this sweet potato,'" Simon says. "You can get a good-sized potato and maybe get two meals out of it."

Two meals -- or a dozen crispy-skinned, fleshy sweet potato fries. For the record, Simon likes his paired with a turkey sandwich.