At its facility in the former Eastman Kodak campus in Rochester, New York, Farther Farms makes fresh potatoes into fries, treats them with supercritical carbon dioxide, and packages them. The packages can travel wherever they need to go without refrigeration, and the fries are ready for the fryer, reports Megan Poinski in an in-depth article for FoodDive.
Mike Annunziata, co-founder and CEO, said that the company’s ultimate goal is to cut down on the amount of food that needs to be refrigerated and frozen. It’s not about disrupting french fries. Farther Farms wants to change the way the world thinks about food.
“It’s not going to happen overnight, but you start with a concept that people can understand,” Annunziata said. “Everybody knows a frozen french fry. Now, they’re going to know a fry that isn’t frozen, and we can bring a product lens to that and say, ‘Here’s a high-quality shelf-stable fry.’ “
Annunziata’s problem with refrigeration is largely environmental. It eats up about 15% of all of the world’s energy consumption, Annunziata said. Refrigerated storage can account for 10% of a product’s carbon footprint, according to statistics from the Global Cold Chain Alliance.
