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There’s something about Sally

The new star of PotatoMagic’s family has been named Best in Show at the 2008 FOOD Challenge Awards, after taking out the Snack Foods Award.

“I was very humbled and elevated by the recognition of the Awards after so many years of hard work,” said CEO and project manager, Andrew Dyhin of the company’s win. “It was an absolute feeling of numbness and gratitude. To the FOOD Magazine team, all the competitors and everybody that supported us and helped us get there over so many years.”

Sultry Sally Potato Chips are baked, 97% fat free potato chips, made from Australian potatoes, and available in four flavours — Sea Salt, Thai Sweet Chilli & Lime, Salt & Vinegar and Cheese & Onion. The product was developed to address the need for a snack that met the increasing concern in the community about our high-fat diet. The chips were designed to be of real benefit in Australia’s daily fight against obesity, while providing an exciting, flavoursome and nutritious snack experience.

Inspired by Dyhin’s mother’s potato pancakes, the PotatoMagic R&D team set out to develop a unique product and a processing technique that would offer sustainability and environmental responsibility in resource use and production.

PotatoMagic Australia took up the product licence, enabling Australia to be at the global forefront of this exciting product innovation and development.

The ingredients used in Sultry Sally Chips are innovative in relation to their purity, nutritional value and functionality, minimising the need to enhance the flavour with additives. The ingredients, which are 100% Australian potatoes (of any variety), pure olive oil, pure sunflower oil, sea salt, and natural flavours (when available), serve as building blocks to challenge the obesity crisis.

Sultry Sally Chips contain up to 91% potato, compared with chips currently on the market, which can contain as little as 65% potato or less. The flexibility of the process also allows the use of a wide variety of potatoes, not just a few specific varieties, offering growers a better return while increasing sustainability, reducing food miles, and giving the manufacturer a wider supply base.

Throughout the processing, the potatoes are handled very gently to avoid leaching of nutrients and starch into the processing water. By minimizing leaching, the waste water becomes suitable for drip irrigation while virtually untreated.

From pre-processing, the potatoes go into the forming and baking oven process. This promotes purity of product and provides maximum nutritional impact by avoiding the need to add flour or other starchy material to the potato. Full flavour is maintained as the product provides a good mouth feel, shape, crunch and texture. Taking pure, nutritional potatoes, the skin is kept on to retain its beneficial fibre, vitamins and nutrients and to make a pure potato chip virtually without wasting any potato or its inherent goodness.Sultry Sally’s packaging also breaks with tradition, with a narrow footprint, and eye-catching design.

Winning the FOOD Challenge Awards just ahead of Sally’s official launch, has meant big changes for PotatoMagic. According to Dyhin, “the Award is making my life extremely difficult — orders are doubling!”

“We’re very humbled by the recognition we’ve received and very grateful for what it’s actually going to be doing for us going forward.”

Lena Zak is the editor of FOOD Magazine.

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