People will now be able to get organic fries from a local manufacturer in the grocery stores.


Folkland Farms in Waterford launched their new line of frozen French fries on Tuesday.

Two years after coming up with an initial idea, and one year after breaking ground on the land, company leaders cut the ribbon on their newest plant.


Colton Troyer, the Director of Sales at Folkland Farms and a part-time farmer explained, "We are farmers at our core, that's our passion, but our next step was finding a new use for our potatoes. We always had the dream of converting the farm to organic and the only way to do that was to build the brand and build the factory because there isn't really a use for those potatoes otherwise."


Then came the thought of different flavors of organic fries, As Troyer explained, "These are clean ingredient, organic farm fries, cooked in olive oil, using all clean ingredients, everything you can pronounce and find in your kitchen."


Producing the fries is one task, but making sure they are organic takes another level of commitment. Russell Redding, the Secretary of Agriculture for Pennsylvania said, "To be organic is a very high standard. So the rotation of those crops becomes critical. Now they have market demand that's going to be able to provide certain quantities of organic French fries."


This plant will provide work to farmers across the country and here in Erie County too. According to Troyer, "We are putting this up to farmers all across the state, all across the tri-state area. We have contract growers helping us grow potatoes, to help feed this plant and feed this brand. But, more importantly, locally here, we are hiring people for production, hiring people for sales, and marketing as well. So it's opening up all kinds of opportunities."

 Right now, they are only producing fries, but there's bigger plans in the coming months. As Troyer explained, "So we are launching tater tots pretty soon, we have the equipment in, launching those in the next couple months, but beyond that, we see ourselves growing into sweet potatoes and other things you will see on the shelf."


People can now find these fries in grocery stores like Giant Eagle and Giant in Eastern Pennsylvania.