US: Russians come to York during Cold War to check out potato chips

This clipping from the York County Heritage Trust files shows that during the height of the cold war Russian officials were interested in, of all things, York County potato chips. The December 5, 1959 item from the Gazette and Daily reports: Russia’s First Deputy Minister of Trade and Agriculture visited two potato chip manufacturing firms in York yesterday and impressed the operators with his knowledge of production methods generally. The potato chip business is operated on a small scale only in the Soviet Union and with an entirely different kind of chip produced, the minister, Dmitri R. Korolev, indicated in his conversations with officials at El-Ge Potato Chip Company, Inc., and Bon Ton Foods, Inc. Expansion with output of a product more like potato chips made here is a goal. Potato chips afford a new outlet for potatoes, one of Russia’s abundant crops, he made known through an English-speaking Russian economist and a U.S. State department interpreter accompanying him. More