There’s a new potato in town and its name is AAC Canada Gold-Dorée. The new spud is yellow-skinned, pleasantly round, and, some say, even tastier than Yukon Gold. AAC Canada Gold-Dorée may just be setting the new gold standard for the fresh potato market in the country, reports Emily Leeson in Farm Focus.
She writes that the new variety is licensed by New Brunswick-based and family-owned Canadian Eastern Growers Inc., which acquired the North American rights for 20 years back in 2017. AAC Canada Gold-Dorée is now poised to become available in most Metro supermarkets in Quebec and Ontario this year and to expand to other parts of the country in 2021.
André Côté, co-owner of Canadian Eastern Growers Inc. along with his brother Eric Côté, said the demand for the new variety is already very strong among producers.
“All the producers who have trialled AAC Canada Gold-Dorée have asked for as much as possible in the next year of production,” he said. “We are on the increase as fast as available through both the New Brunswick and Quebec seed system.”
Located just outside Drummond, N.B., the Côté family farm started out in 1976 with 50 acres of seed potatoes. Since then, the family has expanded the farm to more than 400 acres planted to more than 30 varieties of seed potatoes and 400-plus acres of rotational crops. They also do extensive trialling of more than 35 new potato varieties annually. Among their successes are varieties such as Colorado Rose, Canela Russet, and AAC Valley Crisp.
As for AAC Canada Gold-Dorée, Côté said they’re in the “ramping up process” and expect to have more than 50,000 hundredweight of seed available by the spring of 2022.
Read the full story in Farm Focus here
Photo: Lethbridge News Now
