The trip to Black Gold Farms was paid for in full by Black Gold Farms but all opinions are 100% mine as always 🙂
Travel and Food… two things that have over taken my summer. Things that literally make my world go ’round and two things that I love to combine whenever possible. I have gotten to travel more this year than I have in a long time. I also made a commitment to myself earlier this year to eat better and to learn more about my food and where it comes from.
When I made that commitment, I had no idea that a few months later I would literally be standing in a potato farm in Missouri learning about the farm and watching red potatoes being harvested.
I received an invitation in May to join two other bloggers ( Sandy from Reluctant Entertainer and Heidi from Foodie Crush) on a tour of Black Gold Farms in Arbyrd, Missouri. Not only were we getting to head out to the Midwest to visit the farm but were given the opportunity to have a giveaway on our blogs and take someone with us. (Brenda from A Farm Girl’s Dabbles also had a giveaway on her blog but did not come on the trip)
Hundreds of people entered for the chance to go with us. After a week or so the giveaways ended and we had our winners. Meghan, Ali, Cathy and Sommer would be joining us as we flew across the country and earned our “Farm Cred” in the red and chip potato farms of Missouri.
June flew by and soon I was standing in the airport in Raleigh nervously twitching and trying to clam myself as our plane boarded. (I use to not mine flying, but since I’ve gotten married, I feel like everything is going to lead to my death it’s crazy) But after an hour or so of panic, Meghan and I landed safety in Memphis, TN and started our journey.
We met up with the others bloggers and headed out to find some lunch. Traveling makes everyone hungry! Well it makes everyone one hungry if “everyone” is a group of food bloggers, so we stopped at Tops BBQ for a quick bite. Real, Memphis Style BBQ ya’ll!
Then we started the hour or so drive to our hotel for the night in Paragould, Arkansas. We dropped our bags off in the rooms and then walked over to Don Jose’s for a margarita to help cool us down before we went to dinner.
We were taken over to the Paragould Country Club, that was beautifully set up for our dinner.
What’s a potato farm trip without potato decorations! |
We had dinner with Angie, Leah, Glenn and Melinda as we learned more about the Halverson family and Black Gold Farms.
Black Gold Farms is family owned and has eleven farms in eleven states! The Halverson family is in their 85th year of continuous potato production and they supply 1/2 billion pounds of potatoes each year! Black Gold Farms is the largest supplier of chip potatoes for Frito Lay! So what-do-ya-know, you’ve most likely eaten a potato right from the fields of Black Gold Farm!
After dinner we rode back to the hotel to grab a few hours of shut eye before our long day at the farm.
By time we got to the farms the tractors and workers were already harvesting the potatoes and John talked to us a bit about the farm and these “white chippers” potatoes that are used for potato chips.
Myself and Cathy at Black Gold Farms in Arbyrd, Missouri |
Did you know that there are special potatoes just for potato chips?! I didn’t know this! I thought a potato chip just came from a regular russet potato. Wrong. These “chip potatoes” are grown just for potato chips and have a super thin skin.
.Now here in Virginia, where I live, there are farms. There are lots of them too. Mostly tobacco farms, but still farms. My grandpa had a vegetable garden and I remember following behind him when I was little picking vegetables. So in my brain, that’s how vegetables were picked. By hand. haha
Absolutely not here. I’m sure everyone knew that but me. Well I mean I figured that trucks were there to haul the potatoes and in my rational mind I knew that there would be some kind of machine to harvest but because of the way I watched my grandpa tend to his garden for a brief second I excepted to see people out harvesting these potatoes. Crazy I know. That would take FOREVER here.
So it was pretty neat to actually see a tractor harvesting the potatoes from the fields and shooting them into the truck!
Glenn and Leah in the fields |
After visiting the chipper fields we drove over to the red potato fields.
We’re big red potato eaters in my house. I prefer them over any other type of potato so this was the field I was most interested in.
We even got to ride in the tractors for a bit! Now look at that, who else can say that they’ve rode around the Black Farms red potato fields in a harvester?! Well… I suppose the farmers…. haha but other than them?! We can 😉
It was amazing to see everything in work here at the farm.
(There’s Meghan and I in the Red Potato Field!)
Look at those potatoes! Literally right from the field!
After lunch at Strawberrys BBQ, we went over to the packaging plant to see the rest of the process.
We watched the chipper potatoes literally go from the fields, through the wash, passed inspection and into the truck. We also got to taste some potato chips. Potato chips that had been cut and fried right there in their test kitchen.
Did you know that the “burnt” looking parts on a potato chip isn’t from being burnt. Those spots are actually created due to the amount of sugar in the potato!
After a little potato chip snack, we hopped on over to where they were working on the red potatoes.
Black Gold Farms has partnered with McCormick and they now have this awesome new “Better with Reds” product out.
It’s the perfect little side dish to complete dinner with! The potatoes and seasoning packet is included. All you have to do is rinse the potatoes, cut them up, season them and bake until done! Easy! We’ve used this at home and loved it.
After a wonderful day on the farm, we thanked the family and workers of Black Gold Farm for a full day of potato experiences and loaded back up to make the trip back to Memphis.
We were treated to a incredible fun dinner at Flight in Memphis that night. This was the first time I’d been to Memphis! Loved the city, or what little I saw of it while there. It was a busy trip lol (Between flights, travel and the tour, Meghan and I were literally in six states in 3 days haha)
I mean look at that menu! You got to choose a “flight” for dinner which was 3 items from the menu! (3 small portions, but still a huge dinner) We also had flights of champagne and dessert!
Thank you so much Black Gold Farm for the opportunity to visit your farm and learn about your company. Actually seeing the farms and people behind the product was exactly what I wanted to learn about this year and this 100% fit into the commitment I made myself earlier this year.
If you want to learn more about Black Gold Farm you can find them on Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram!!
Also here are some other re-caps of the trips from bloggers that were there:
Sommer’s Trip Post ( A Spicy Perspective)
Sandy’s Trip Post (Reluctant Entertainer)
Cathy’s Trip Post (Noble Pig)
Here is a great little video from our trip to Black Gold Farms that Leah put together!
The trip to Black Gold Farms was paid for in full by Black Gold Farms but all opinions are 100% mine as always 🙂
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