Further Information

About the Ugly potatoes

The Ugly potatoes were first produced in 2016 and were the first potato chips produced in Iceland, made from Icelandic potatoes. The Ugly potatoes are thick cut and two flavors will be available to start with: salt and pepper, and arctic thyme and vinegar. We use "ugly potatoes" which would otherwise be largely disposed of and thus we help the fight against food waste.

Icelandic potatoes are generally not suitable for the production of potato chips mainly due to the high proportion of starch. Only imported potato chips have been available in Iceland and snacks made with imported ingredients. After developing a production process suitable for local potatoes, the Ugly Potatoes were put into production and later we collaborated with a domestic food producer to lower the production costs. The result was thick cut, crisp and tasty potato chips. The production capacity was not high, and the production costs was still too high. The receptions on the potato chips were generally good, but they were for sale in limited quantities in small packaging. In order to boost the production capacity, start making consumer-friendly bags of chips, lower production costs and ensure maximum quality, we saw that we needed to move production to our own manufacturing facility that has been named the House of Harvest. We share it with two innovative food producers; Brunnur Distillery that make Himbrimi gin and Öldur who are the first mead producers in Iceland.

Environmental factors

Farmers find it difficult to sell the potatoes we use and therefore large quanitites get disposed of. The potatoes we use are not discarded because they are damaged, but because they are too big and strange looking for general sale. By utilizing these potatoes, we find use for domestic goods and contribute to the fight against food waste. As seen on photo below, these potatoes can well be used, even though they may be a little strange or simply "too" big and rough in appearance. Some companies find use for it to make pre cooked potatoes and french fries. But there is also a large waste when making such products because local breeds need to be largely peeled because they have deep holes (eyes) that needs to be removed. But we leave the skin on so there is almost no waste making our products.

Snacks are protected with large, air-filled bags, which means that such imported products leave a large carbon footprint that can be avoided by selecting domestic products made with local goods.

We chose to pack our potato chips in bags that are exclusively made of recyclable plastic. It is unavoidable to have plastic in chips packaging to ensure acceptable shelf life. All other potato chips on the market are packed in bags made of plastic and aluminum film or cardboard and plastic, which according to Sorpa recycling, is sent to Sweden where it is burned for heating or power generation. Clear plastic that can be recycled indefinitely was, in our opinion, the best choice. Of course we encourage everyone to recycle our bags and all other waste.

Today's status

We have decided to take over all the production of the potato chips. In recent months we have been setting up our own facility and we've been installing the main machines for production. Our goal is to deliver quality thick cut Icelandic potato chips for sale in shops around the country at competitive prices. With these changes, we see ourselves able to produce more quantities, bigger packaging and lower production costs, resulting in lower prices for consumers. In the next few weeks, we plan to be able to test the production, but we need just a little more to be able to start delivering to the supermarkets. For this we need a packing machine. With your contribution, you will have the opportunity to buy our hand made potato chips in larger bags that we will hand packed and labeled. These big bags meet all requirements regarding quality and content descriptions, but our hope is that our designed bags can be accessed in stores early next year.

Contribution and delivery

If our project will be fully financed by December 24, we aim to invite people who have supported us to come to our factory at Desjamýri 8, 270 Mosfellsbæ, on Sunday 30 December between kl. 10:00 - 12:00, to get a fresh bag of Icelandic potato chips for the New Year party. It is planned that the main delivery time of the products will be at our factory at Desjamýri 8, 270 Mosfellsbær, Friday 18 January between kl. 12:00 - 17:00 and Saturday January 19th, at. 10:00 - 12:00. For those who don't live in the Reykjavik area, we offer to send chips via the postal service but the the buyer needs to pay for shipping costs. Sadly it's not possible to send abroad.