Canadian entrepreneur modifies french fry cutter for new markets

Charlottetown entrepreneur Hamid Sanayie is trying to be a cut above the rest in the french fry world. The Iranian-born man moved to Prince Edward Island (PEI) in August 2007 after living in the United Kingdom for the past 21 years. He was looking for a quiet and safe place to raise his children, but Sanayie also had quite an eye for business. “I ran a restaurant and I was surprised to see everybody using frozen french fries,’’ Sanayie said. “They had these famous (P.E.I.) potatoes and I wondered why they were using the frozen ones.’’ So, he went looking for a fry cutter. In fact, he looked all over North America, but found nothing. He started up a new company called Fry Factory in hopes of changing that. Sanayie decided to buy one from the U.K., but modifications to the machine had to be made for the machine to handle big potatoes. What they’ve been left with is a machine that turns these potatoes into french fries. Sanayie’s machine can produce a 50-pound bag of french fries in one minute. More