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Americans Consume Over 70 Million Pounds Of Tater Tots Per Year

On February 2nd, National Tater Tot Day recognizes a kitchen staple. In the United States, we consume approximately 3.5 billion of these nuggets of potato goodness per year.

  • 1953 – Tater Tots were created when Ore-Ida founders F. Nephi Grigg and Golden Grigg tried to figure out what to do with leftover slivers of cut-up potatoes. They came up with the novel idea of chopping up the potato slivers, adding flour and seasoning, then pushing the mash through holes and slicing off pieces of what came out on the other side.
  • 1953 – When Tater Tots were first invented, the Griggs needed to come up with a name, so they held a contest among employees and their friends. Clora Lay Orton, a young housewife, suggested the name Tater Tots.
  • 1953 – Sonic Drive-in opens. It’s a tater to hot spot now — but they didn’t serve them when they first opened.
  • 1954 – At a 1954 Breakfast at the National Potato Convention in the newly constructed Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, FL. Nephi packed 15 lbs. of Tater Tots in dry ice and flew to attend the conference. He sweet-talked his way into the kitchen and convinced the chef to cook up his tots. They were placed in small saucers on the breakfast tables as treats.
  • To quote Nephi: “They were gobbled up quicker than a dead cat could wag its tail.” – Submitted by Steve Grigg (Nephi son)
  • 1950s -Ore-Ida introduced Tater Tots as an affordable side dish. Their low cost and easy preparation made them popular in school cafeterias nationwide.
  • 1956 – Tater Tots were first available in stores in 1956.
  • 1960s – Tater Tots had become a common feature in American school lunches, offering a tasty and budget-friendly option for feeding large groups of students.
  • 1965 – Four years after going public in 1961, Ore-Ida was purchased by Heinz, and today tater tots rank right up there with potato chips and French fries on the list of beloved fried potato products.
  • 2009 – National Tater Tot Day is officially recognized after a food writer’s attempt at filling out his copy quota. Once John-Bryan Hopkins, author of the book, Foodimentary, put it into the cyberspace of Twitter it was an instant hit!
  • 2021 – The first Tater Tot Festival Is held in Ontario, Oregon.
  • These bite-sized bits of golden created the scraps from making French fries once used to feed cattle.
  • Tater Tots mean “baby potatoes”; tatter for potato & tots “meaning little one.”
  • Tater Tots is a registered trademark for a commercial form of hash browns made by Ore-Ida, as a side dish made from deep-fried, grated potatoes.
  • Americans consume over 70 million pounds of Tots per year.
  • Tater Tots are known as Tasti-Taters in Canada
  • In New Zealand, they’re known as Hash Bites
  • In Australia, tater tots are known as “potato gems.”
  • The British call tater tots “potato croquettes.”
  • Sonic fast food restaurant is a tater tot hot spot.
  • One of the ingredients in Tater Tots is disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate, which is generally recognized as safe by the FDA but is also used to remove hair and feathers from livestock.
  • Tater Tots were sold extremely cheap when first invented because they were fried scraps, but they didn’t sell as expected for that very reason. There was no “perceived value” (consumers just assumed they were worthless because the price was so low), but they started selling once the price was increased.
  • The name “tater tot” comes from the slang word for potatoes. Other names: Potato rounds, potato puffs, tater puffs, potato cylinders, potato nuggets, potato croquettes, baby taters.
  • One serving of Tater Tots contains approximately 160 calories. These delicious bite-sized treats may be small, but they can still pack a caloric punch!
  • Tater Tots are primarily made up of carbohydrates. A serving of Tater Tots can provide you with about 15 grams of carbs, which can give you the energy boost you need.
  • In the movie “Napoleon Dynamite,” the main character famously stores Tater Tots in his pocket. This scene has become iconic, highlighting the snack’s place in pop culture.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

Foodimentary

Faith Based Events

Mobile-Cuisine

Mental Floss

The Daily Meal

Greeting Card Poet

National Today

Interesting Facts

Facts.net

Days of the Year


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