Culinary student Gage Hess experienced several first-time events this fall. He earned the inaugural Idaho Potato Commission’s Student of the Year award and received a $1,000 scholarship. He participated in his first harvest farm tour courtesy of the IPC. For the first time, he stepped foot in Idaho and rode a horse in Wyoming. These events changed, educated and inspired the Culinary Institute of Michigan at Baker College student from Muskegon, Mich.

“It was such a great trip - amazing,” Hess said. “It was really cool to see where ingredients come from.” 

The three-day tour saw Hess along with bloggers, foodservice distributors and operators, chefs, and social media influencers visit and talk with potato farmers, tour a shipping facility where Idaho® potatoes are sorted and packaged, and viewed the mammoth potato sheds that store potatoes in a climate-controlled environment which maintains fresh potatoes up to one year. They also visited the one-and-only Idaho Potato Museum in Blackfoot, Idaho.

“I saw mountains of potatoes,” Hess said. He was surprised that most potatoes available on shelves are two- to 10-months-old. He thought the potatoes were harvested, packaged and sent to grocery stores and distribution companies straight away.

He also learned a great deal about potato varieties and how to choose the right potato for the right dish. “I found out two of the most common varieties are Russet Burbank and Russet Norkotah,” he said. “A lot of chefs prefer one over the other because of starch. However I also learned that today there isn’t much of a difference in quality between the two.”

IPC’s Vice President of Foodservice Alan Kahn remarked about why IPC jumped at the chance to be involved with the first Student of the Year award in conjunction with CAFÉ, “IPC has sponsored a farm tour for 10 years and our purpose has been to educate and inspire foodservice people. We wanted to offer the same information to a motivated, up-and-coming culinary student. Gage was exactly the kind of student we wanted to attend the tour. We were thrilled to have him.”

Another trip highlight for Hess included a horse trail ride through the Grand Teton mountains in Wyoming. “It’s such a beautiful place to see for the first time. The trail went up and down. I saw the mountains from different angles. It was amazing,” he said.

IPC has again signed on to sponsor the 2023 Student of the Year award with CAFÉ. This year’s winner will also be awarded a $1,000 scholarship and opportunity to attend the IPC harvest farm tour in September 2023. “We can’t wait to read all the great applications,” Kahn said.