Tater Donator

“Our product already makes people feel good.”

Joseph Swanson, Marketing director for Maine Distilleries

Photo by Peter Grima

It’s the time of year to give what you can to those less fortunate. For most of us that means money or clothing or toys. For Maine Distilleries in Freeport, Maine (population 7,879), maker of Cold River vodka and gin, that means potatoes.

Not being much of a vodka and gin drinker, I didn’t know they’re made from potatoes. The folks at Maine Distilleries use about a million pounds of potatoes a year. They get their spuds from Green Thumb Farms in Fryeburg, Maine (population 1,600), which produces about 20 million pounds of potatoes a year. So when the company wanted to help the hungry, they figured what better way than donating taters. For each bottle of vodka and gin sold in the first three months of 2012 in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, the company will donate a pound of potatoes to food banks in those states. It figures it’ll give away a few thousand pounds of potatoes. As the marketing director for Maine Distilleries quipped, their product already makes people feel good; this is just another way of doing that.

Read more → Christopher Cousins, Maine vodka company to donate thousands of pounds of potatoes to the hungry, Bangor Daily News, December 11, 2011.