Inside Expo West: Uglies Turns Imperfect Potatoes Into Food Waste-Fighting Kettle Chips

Delicious kettle chips made from potatoes that might otherwise go to waste.

While at Natural Products Expo West, Seeing Green spoke with the team behind Uglies Kettle Chips about how the brand rescues cosmetically imperfect potatoes and turns them into flavorful kettle-cooked snacks.

These “ugly” potatoes may be odd sizes, shapes or colors that fail traditional produce beauty standards, but they are perfectly good to eat. By sourcing these upcycled potatoes from farmers, Uglies helps reduce food waste while supporting growers and creating a range of kettle chip flavors including sea salt, barbecue, jalapeño, buffalo ranch and cheddar sour cream, along with sweet potato varieties like sea salt, spicy barbecue and hot honey.

Since launching in 2017, the brand has rescued more than 32 million pounds of potatoes while donating a portion of profits to organizations fighting childhood hunger.

In this conversation from Expo West, we take a closer look at several of the brand’s products and hear how Uglies is helping address the global challenge of food waste. The chips are Upcycled Certified, Non-GMO Project Verified, gluten-free and produced in a nut-free facility, with many flavors also suitable for vegan diets.

Uglies is produced by the family-owned snack maker Dieffenbach’s Snacks, which has been crafting kettle chips and other snacks for decades.

In our “Inside Expo West” series, Seeing Green brings you inside access to the founders, innovators and brands shaping the products and trends that will soon show up on grocery shelves, in kitchens and in homes.