MAPLETON, Maine — Northern Maine’s only commercial potato chip producer can’t keep up with demand for its crunchy snacks even after completing a major expansion of its production facility.
Fox Family Potato Chips Inc. opened its new manufacturing building earlier this year in this small Aroostook County town. The new 4,700 square-foot plant replaced the 1,400-square foot building at 1697 Main St. It still can’t produce enough chips to satisfy its growing number of customers.
“We haven’t been able to meet our demand for the last three summers,” said Rhett Fox, co-owner of the company.
Total gross sales of Fox Family chips last year was about $1.3 million, according to Fox. Over the past five years, sales have grown 83 percent, he said.
“It’s a good problem to have, it’s just stressful,” Fox said of the demand for his products.
Fox Family ships about 5,000 cases of chips every month. The chips, sold in shiny silver bags, are made from locally sourced potatoes from his farming partner in Blaine, Maine, Fox said. Using local potatoes is a key to his product’s success.
“People aren’t expecting a chip to taste like a potato anymore but Mainers do,” Fox said.
Most of Fox Family’s business is done in central and southern Maine, with the bulk of sales through Hannaford, IGA and convenience stores. The company also sells chips online through its website that can be shipped anywhere in the United States and has small distributors based in Newark, Connecticut. A national distributor that Fox Family Chips uses is Performance Food Groups.
Fox began experimenting with handmade chips in his own kitchen 20 years ago and then began selling them in his store formerly called Tretts, now the Mapleton One Stop. The expansion to the first plant soon followed, and construction on the new plant began in 2022. Along the way, Fox partnered with Greg Garrison of Trinity Chips LLC that is a holding company for the Fox Family Chip brand.
Fox said he hasn’t been able to expand his business further because his fryer isn’t big enough to meet the high demand.
This past summer Fox Family was able to meet 50 percent of the demand for its five flavors of chips, according to Fox.
Along with the new building, Fox is adding equipment including a new fryer, slicer, seasoning machine, and a packaging machine. The potato chips are seasoned by hand by Fox’s employees but when the new equipment comes in he plans on experimenting with new flavors.
The new potato chip manufacturing building is more sustainable with packaging material stored on site rather than three miles away at a storage facility, he said.
“We had to build something just because the old facility we had was not a processor-friendly building,” Fox said.
The new building also has a loading dock for ease of transportation, something the smaller building lacked.
Fox Family Chips currently has four employees. Fox said he is interested in hiring an additional worker. An advertisement for one full-time production line position has been posted on Fox Family Chips’ Facebook page for the past two months.
