Popular Restaurant Chain Decides to Only Use Maine Potatoes Grown in Caribou

Great news for the Caribou Russet!

Be proud that when you order a baked potato at any 99 Restaurant in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, and Auburn, Augusta, Biddeford and Topsham in Maine, you are ordering a Maine spud!

According to the Bangor Daily News, the 99 Restaurant (I bet you have the jingle stuck in your head now) has 103 restaurants in 7 states and all of them will use potatoes from Irving Farms in Caribou. It was a record potato harvest and this deal is just more good news piled on top of good news!

This Caribou Russet is a pretty new potato (other potatoes will be used for fries, mashed, and skins). It was developed by the University of Maine potato breeding program with the help of the Maine Potato Board just 5 years ago. I know, I paused too when I saw 'potato breeding'. Anyway, it was grown to resist disease and insects. It was obviously named after Caribou, Maine.

The 99 might have used the Caribou Russet even earlier, but Covid hit and put the restaurant industry on its back heels. They literally started this whole Maine potato only talk a couple of years ago. When things started to loosen up, they started talking again.

The 99 Restaurant is super happy to support a local supplier. Irving Farms has been around since 1936 and they invested heavily into the Caribou Russet devoting over half of its huge 920 acres to just that potato. The Caribou Russet is the 'it' potato right now with everyone wanting it. Apparently, it has a fantastic natural flavor that is 'top-notch'. Well, if that doesn't get you to head to the closest 99 Restaurant, I don't know what will!