Brand Tas

When you wash your potatoes, some of the crop just isn’t right. Historically, Susie Daly would do what everyone else in the business did, around the world: feed them to the cows.

But one year the bushfires around her small community inspired her to think differently. With this lovely soil and clean air and water, everything is delicious – even if it doesn’t look pretty. Why waste anything, when people around her were losing everything?

The answer, or one of the answers: salad.

Other answers: vodka and gin.

“The potato salad business has had more lows than highs and has taken a huge amount of work and energy, technical support, perseverance, faith, and sheer guts,” says Susie.

Susie thinks there is a Tasmanian way to succeed.

“We just have to keep up the quality of what we are producing and not become too commercial,” she says. “Our family pride ourselves on being potato farmers first and do everything around quality and taste, and emulate it across all three businesses.”

The Dalys have benefitted from Tasmanian cooperation, from mentorship, and from the fear of complacency. “We must never stay still.”