US: Purple Magic potato running for the Invent Awards

Purple Magic potato variety is now in the running for the INVENT Awards Agri-Science category. Paul Watts, a scientist from the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), explained that the process of obtaining this new variety was very long.  “We made the first cross for Purple Magic back in 2003 – that’s 13 years of research that has gone into this product,” he said for http://nispconnect.org.  Purple Magic is being marketed in the US and Canada under a sub-license with Solanum International and a major chip manufacturer in North America called Terra Chips has used Purple Magic to make blue potato chips with a distinctive white ring around the edge. Invent is a competition which challenges inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists and startups in the Northern Ireland with proof-of-concepts and prototypes in science and technology to discover the commercial potential of their idea. (Source: Potatobusiness.com) Related story