Private labels, paper bags among packaging trends for potato

Private labels and a switch back to paper bags are among the packaging trends cited by Prince Edward Island potato grower-shippers.

In packaging, Gary Linkletter, president and co-owner of Summerside-based Linkletter Farms Ltd., cited a trend toward private labels.

“All the chains seem to like that,” he said.

PEI shippers also are packing more spuds in paper bays instead of poly, Linkletter said.

The white paper bags with vents in the back so customers can see the product are an old island standby that had lost favor until recently, he said.

In fact, Linkletter Farms didn’t even had a paper-bagging machine at its new facility. It had to add paper capability to catch up with the new, old trend.