FALL 2022

Continuation of A Few Minutes with Michelle.

are doing and how they have brought rice back to NC, I encourage you to check them out – as it’s fascinating and it all stemmed from the desire to create better duck hunting! At this event, we featured both Covington and Purple Majesty sweetpotatoes and included them in a few of the meals prepared for the talented chefs who participated. It is also at this event, that we began the #WheresSpencerSweetpotato social media campaign. If you have access to Instagram and/or Facebook, use this hashtag ( # ) to see some of the posts of where Spencer has traveled this summer. I left Oriental, NC, and flew to Madrid, Spain to begin my inaugural European NC Sweetpotato travels. In two weeks, time, I along with Cathy Ma from the Department of Agriculture traveled to a total of five countries, seven cities, visited three US Embassies, utilizing a smattering of planes, trains, boats, buses, subways, and taxies ( not to mention our feet for walking )! Much like my time in Madrid, we visited wholesale markets and retail stores – at all price points, but we also met with importers and wholesalers, government officials, restaurant owners, chefs, social media influencers, and even a few consumers! This trip provided us both insight with regards to opportunities of how NC may want to next promote our sweetpotatoes in Europe as well as identify trends we saw within the European marketplace, which would perhaps have potential here in the States. It was also educational to see competitor country of origin

in Bonita Springs, FL during May. This event allowed for us to interact with registered dietitians from across the country, as well as nutritionists and researchers alike. We were proud to have our own Registered Dietitian (RD) of record to accompany us, Mrs. Sarah Schlichter (Bucket List Tummy). I feel confident that the materials we brought along with us, including our Retail Dietitian Toolkit, left many of these professionals with a renewed appreciation of sweetpotatoes and the inspiration to further utilize them within their own practices. We are excited to see where our numerous conversations from this event will lead.

When it comes to having the honor of promoting NC sweetpotatoes, I don’t believe it gets much more epic than how I spent the majority of June. It began in Pamlico County, NC as I joined our friends at Ripe Revival and Tidewater Grain Rice Company for an NC Chef Tour at NC’s ONLY rice farm. If you are not familiar with what the folks at Tidewater Grain

Spencer’s view of the rice fields in Pamlico County

“When it comes to haveing the honor of promoting NC sweetpotatoes, I don’t beleive it gets much more epic than how I spent the majority of June”

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