Should You Consider Selling Potato Dishes? Are They Very Profitable?

According to an article by Yahoo!Life of which their reference website is TheStreet a personal finance website: “A fast food chain can usually get a pound of potatoes for about 15 cents but can sell them as fries for about $6 per pound.”

“That's a markup of a wild 3,900% and it's why these restaurants love moving along a lot of fries.” Of course we have to consider labor cost, cooking oil, salt, packaging and etc. But still, a 3,900% markup is very, very profitable.

For example, according to a LinkedIn article, McDonalds earns between 70 to 90 US cents for every 10 cent they spend on potatoes. Incidentally, drinks are also one of the most profitable item in fast foods and restaurants.

For additional information on this you can read another article of mine titled: "Why Did Dunkin Donuts Decided To Concentrate On Drinks And Beverages? Should You Do The Same?" This article focuses on the profitability of drinks and beverages to food establishments.

I wondered if there were US restaurants that serve potato dishes so I Googled it using the search term: “french fry only restaurant in the us” and luckily I found two. The first one is 3 Potato 4 or 3p4 for short.

Another restaurant that specializes in fries is Pommes Frites. They have over 30 mouth watering sauces that you could choose to use for their French Fries. But given the popularity of French Fries I have no doubt that there’s still more restaurants unlisted online.

In the country I currently reside in, the Philippines, there are a variety of food stands and restaurants that exclusively sell deep fried potato dishes like French Fries. They can even be found in posh malls.

Also, if you do a casual search in YouTube using the search term: ”potato street food”, you would come across several videos from all over the world showing you the different ways potato is cooked as street food.

So, there is no doubt that selling only potato dishes could be a good business. This is in spite of the fact that all fast foods are already selling French Fries. If even fast foods can’t handle the demand for potato dishes then it just means there’s a very good demand for potato dishes.

There is no doubt that deep fried potatoes like French Fries are the most known potato dishes. Of course many commercially made potato chips are not purely potatoes but many still consider them food from potato.

One of the good thing about potato is the fact that its taste changes depending on the size of its cut. For example, the thinnest are potato chips followed by the others like French Fry cut, potato slices, half slices up to full potatoes.

You can also sell mashed potato, hash browns and baked potato. You can add bits of vegetables and meat to your potatoes most especially baked potatoes. In some countries, potatoes are even eaten like bread.

You can sell fried, boiled, baked and even roasted potatoes. There are many YouTube videos which show how potatoes are cooked in the methods stated previously. You again can use the YouTube search term: “potato street food” for examples.

You can sell the cooked potatoes as is or garnish them with such cheap flavorings as cheese and butter. I particularly recommend that you study Indian vegetarian potato dishes if you are a vegetarian or want to reduce your meat intake…

I was lucky enough to have Indian neighbors while I was still living in Australia. My gracious Indian neighbors would sometimes give me Indian foods for free. I was lucky enough to know how Indian vegetarian dishes taste like.

And my Indian neighbors used a lot of spices in their sauce dishes which goes great with their rice. In fact, you can have a cheap Indian meal with their sauce, rice and peas alone. I highly recommend that you try Indian Potato Curry if ever you have the chance.

Though potatoes lack the protein content of meat, they nevertheless beat meat in terms of carbohydrates. Also, potatoes contain very little fat that there are people who substitute potato for meat especially those who are health conscious.

If ever you’re selling to health conscious people, you may want to consider studying Indian vegetarian dishes. There are even many famous Indian bodybuilders and weightlifters who are vegetarians. It is good to point this out to your potential clients.

Believe it or not, there are people who consider potatoes as complete meals. I’m not even talking about baked potatoes garnished with meat, cheese, butter, vegetables and so on. I’m just talking about the simple French Fries.

I used to go to a food shop which sells grilled chicken and several potato dishes, but their number one seller are their French Fries of which they can’t seem to cook fast enough especially in the evenings at around dinnertime.

One thing I noticed is that the buyers of the French Fries were mainly young people which I would presume to be in their mid-twenties and below. Incidentally, this experiences of mine are while I was in Australia.

In case you don’t know, there are plenty of food shops in Australia or Sydney at least which sells deep fried food including French Fries. I would often see young people buying French Fries by the box (about the size of a small shoe box) or by the shopping bag.

These people would then share the French Fries among themselves. And that’s it, this was their meal. They don’t buy any more fried dishes like chicken, barbecue and so on. They would only buy French Fries in bulk.

Firstly, I highly suggest that you watch several YouTube videos of how potatoes are being sold as street food. This would give you a good idea of what types of potato dishes you could sell if ever you want to setup a potato food stand.

But you don’t actually have to select. You can actually make the customer choose what size of potato they want to buy. Do they want potatoes cooked as potato chips, French Fries, potato slices, or full potatoes? Let your customer decide. This way, you offer variety.

You can also increase the variety of your offering by preparing different sauces for your potatoes. Does your customer want their potato to taste sweet, sweet and sour, barbecue, spicy and so on?

You could also offer to have their potato baked, grilled, fried and so on. Ultimately, as your potato food shop goes along, you would know already which kinds of sauces, cooking styles, and potato slices are popular. You can double down on this.

Potatoes are one of the most convenient food humans ever have. They grow relatively fast and are not picky. They could grow in almost all conditions under the sun. They are also easy to cook and taste good even without flavorings.

Potatoes are also very profitable. You can earn between 70 to 90 cents for every 10 cent you spend on potatoes, what’s more, even though all fast foods sell them, they don’t seem to be dominating indie food shops which also sell potato dishes.

Most notably, there are people I know and me myself who consider French Fries as a meal by themselves. Just consider how profitable you could be if your customers started switching their other meals with your potato dishes only on a regular basis.

You might also like to read the article:

Why Did Dunkin Donuts Decided To Concentrate On Drinks And Beverages? Should You Do The Same?

It is no big secret that selling drinks and beverages is more profitable than selling food. Drinks and beverages are easier and cheaper to prepare. But this is not the complete picture at least for Dunkin Donuts or as what they like to be known at least in the US as just “Dunkin” ...