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Local potato farm to be featured on PBS TV program

By Staff | Apr 7, 2009

PBS crew is shown at Troyer potato farm operation outside Lehigh Acres

Troyer Brothers Inc., a potato farm operation based in Lee County, just east of Lehigh Acres on SR 82, will be featured on a new television program to air nationally on PBS stations around the country this fall.

A production crew from the TV program Food Sense visited the farm recently to videotape harvesting operations and interview key personnel.

Food Sense is a new one-hour program launching in the fourth quarter of this year which will air on public television stations across the U.S. With news of food source scares increasing, consumers have raised their interest in learning more about where our food comes from and the process of getting food from source to table.

The show will engage farmers, industry experts and consumers in a dialogue which will help consumers understand what they are eating from a health, nutrition, taste and value perspective.

The show will be hosted by Phil Lempert, a leading food and nutrition expert known as The Supermarket Guru. He is a regular correspondent for the Today show, makes monthly appearances on ABC’s The View, and has appeared numerous times on The Oprah Winfrey Show, 20/20, CNN, CNBC, Discovery Health and MSNBC, as well as on local television morning and news programs throughout the country.

Aaron Troyer, gneral operationsmanager for Troyer Brothers, a family potato farm operation, is shown being interviewed by PBS for a show later this year.

Troyer Brothers Inc. is one of Florida’s largest potato farms, with approximately 3,500 acres under management. Troyer’s raises white, red and yellow potatoes which are sold locally, nationally and in Canada.

The farm is a family-run concern, owned by brothers Vern, Don and David Troyer and it is respected throughout the industry for the quality of its product and its efficient operations utilizing high-tech techniques to manage its fields.

“PBS’s call came at just the right time as potato harvest is in full swing,” said Aaron Troyer, general operations manager for Troyer Brothers. “They were able to get some great footage because from February through April we run full-out getting the potatoes out of the ground and into the marketplace.”

The PBS production crew spent the day following a potato from when it was mechanically harvested from the ground by a massive tractor, scooped up into a truck and transported to the packing house, washed, scanned, sorted, graded, packaged, and then shipped out via semi-trailer the same day.

The crew interviewed Troyer, who is the son of David Troyer, and is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the farm. He toured the crew through the fields and the packinghouse and explained the meticulous labeling that is used to track the produce so that any specific potato could be traced back to the exact field from which it was harvested.

“We are very pleased to be included in Food Sense,” said Troyer. “It’s an honor to have a prestigious organization like PBS tour our farm and we’re happy to be part of educating people about how food ends up in their grocery store and helping them make good food choices.”