WATERFORD, Pa. — From potatoes to chips, the Troyer family has been growing and serving potato products for decades. But now, the family has set their sights on a new potato market: organic French fries.
Brothers Zack Troyer and Colt Troyer broke ground on Folkland Foods’ French fry factory in late 2024, with production starting in April. The Troyers are now preparing for the nationwide launch of Folkland Foods French Fries, set for Sept. 15.
The goal for the third-generation potato farmers is to produce a quality product with simple ingredients and full transparency.
“People want that connection to food, and so for us, we wanted to show that whole story of the farm, the entire process, where the food’s actually coming from,” said Colt Troyer, third-generation potato farmer and co-founder of Folkland Foods.
Troyer family history
The Troyer Family Farm dates back to the late 1930s when Zack and Colt’s grandfather, Clifford Troyer, and his brothers started growing potatoes on a few acres in Erie County, Pennsylvania.
“Back then, there was some mechanization, but everything was hand-bagged in the field in burlap bags and loaded onto trucks,” Zack said, co-founder of Folkland Foods.
Clifford and his brothers founded the Troyers’ potato chip business, called Troyer Farms, in the early 1960s, which built up the family’s “well-loved regional brand,” Zack said. “That’s where everything else grew out of it.”
Through the potato chip brand, Troyer Growers, a subsidiary of Troyer Farms, was created to manage the farmland and growing side of the business. The farm would also expand to 800 acres by the late 1990s; Zack and Colt’s father, Mark Troyer, took over operations on the farm in the mid-’90s.
But in 2009, Troyer Growers would be all that was left of the business after the potato company was sold off, unable to compete with the larger potato chip brands. This, however, would not stop the family from continuing with its potato-growing roots.
Troyer brothers
Zack and Colt started working on the farm from a young age and always knew they wanted to grow the business together.
“The Troyer Farms potato chip business got sold when we were pretty young, we never really got work in it. So, we’ve always had a chip on our shoulder,” Zack said. “We really wanted to do it again and build something like our grandfather did.”
Zack graduated from Penn State University in 2016 with a degree in plant science and took several jobs as an agronomist and farm manager, including on a CBD farm in Oregon.
While in Oregon, Colt stayed with Zack for a few months. There, they first started experimenting with growing organic potatoes on 10 acres, hand-planting and harvesting the potatoes and even building a potato storage unit in Zack’s garage.
The brothers sold the organic potatoes to local grocery stores in the area. But this stint wouldn’t last long, as Colt and Zack felt pulled back to their roots in Erie. Colt moved back to Erie in 2021 and graduated from Penn State with a degree in finance in 2022.
Zack moved back home in September 2022, and shortly after, he and Colt took over operations at Troyer Growers from their dad. The duo decided to produce organic French fries after seeing what they called a “gap in the market” on the East Coast.
“If you go to the grocery store and look for organic French fries, you’re likely not going to find them. There’s only one brand, and it’s by a really large company,” Zack said. “We think there are more people out there who would buy them for their kids and for themselves if they were available.”
Going organic
Before they could produce organic French fries, though, the brothers had to transition 1,500 acres of farmland to organic production — a long-time goal for Colt and Zack, who had been spraying conventional potatoes with pesticides for decades.
“We didn’t want to be around that our entire lives, and we didn’t want to make our employees be around that their entire lives either,” Colt said, about their reasons for switching to organic.
The transition to certified organic is a lengthy process as the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Organic Program standards require land to be managed without prohibited substances for a continuous three-year period.
Their father, Mark, started transitioning some of the land in 2018. They achieved 70 acres of certified organic land last year and hit 140 acres this year. By next year, they will have converted 500 more acres of potatoes to certified organic production.
Folkland Foods French fries
Folkland Foods broke ground on its French fry factory in August 2024 and started producing French fries this past spring. The French fries come in three different flavors: Himalayan salt, Cajun and rosemary garlic.
In addition to being organic, Zack and Colt went to great lengths to ensure the fries were made using simple ingredients. This includes frying them in olive oil and using apple cider as a natural preservative.
“It’s all ingredients you’d find in your own kitchen,” Zack said. “It’s still a French fry, but it is substantially healthier than what’s out there today.”
Now that production is up and running, Folkland Foods French Fries is looking to expand. Currently, the fries can be found in Giant Eagle stores across western Pennsylvania. But on Sept. 15, the company will be launching its fries nationally through Sprouts grocery stores and in Giant, an eastern Pennsylvania chain of grocery stores, on Sept. 22.
The company will begin producing tater tots later this year, too. As the brothers look to keep the momentum going, they hope to get more organic potato farmers in the region involved with Folkland Foods.
Since the potato chip business, the Troyer family has prioritized sourcing potatoes from other farmers. This tradition has carried into the business today, with currently five contract growers supplying Folkland Foods with organic potatoes.
Zack and Colt are encouraging more farmers to grow organic potatoes because, to them, it’s about sharing the wealth, not hoarding it.
“We watched a lot of other farms disappear in our county and in our area over our lifetimes. I’m not very old and I’ve seen a lot disappear. We think it is a bad direction for the world to go,” Colt said. “We don’t want to be one that’s gobbling up acres and taking market share for ourselves. For us, it is way more important to give an opportunity to other growers than for us to do it all ourselves.”
If you are interested in growing organic potatoes for Folkland Foods, contact hello@folklandfoods.com. For more information, visit https://folklandfoods.com/.
(Liz Partsch can be reached at epartsch@farmanddairy.com or 330-337-3419.)
