Mart Frozen Foods opened a $65 million frozen-baked-potato plant in Rupert, Idaho, United States, on 2 October 2024, Manufacturing Dive reported the following day. The facility makes and packages OH!Tatoes for the consumer market in North America.
From an acquired product to a retail brand
The publication says Mart acquired World Foods four years earlier.
The opening expands both processing space and the route to those customers.
Opening investment, products and employment
The company’s 2 October announcement describes 100,000 square feet of space, 80 new full-time jobs and more than 230 employees across Mart’s Rupert operations. The site stands beside the group’s headquarters. Its product is a whole Idaho potato, already fully baked and then frozen, rather than an uncooked frozen ingredient.
- Named retail channels include Publix, Harris Teeter and Associated Foods.
- The company estimates an annual economic impact of $11.15 million.
- The opening takes place in southern Idaho’s Magic Valley food-manufacturing region.
The economic-impact figure is a company estimate, not a report of the new plant’s annual sales.
A federal loan recorded in 2023
A US Department of Agriculture project list dated 15 June 2023 records a $19.6 million Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan investment for The Mart Group to build a frozen-potato processing facility. It projected a fivefold increase in existing whole-and-diced potato capacity, six new jobs and stabilisation of 12 jobs.
The earlier financing document therefore uses a different employment estimate from the October opening announcement’s 80 jobs. The published accounts do not reconcile their job-count scopes. Its fivefold capacity projection also supplies no absolute annual tonnage, so it cannot establish the new factory’s realised yearly production.
