Before the consumer buys potato products in the store, be they jacket filled cuts, skins or fries, the potato that gave rise to the starchy treat may well have been sealed away in a specially controlled environment. Based on the success of some recent trials this practice could well become more common place.
The environment is called a ‘cleanroom’ (to be accurate not a ‘clean room’ but spelled as one word to differentiate the environment from a room that has simply been cleaned). A cleanroom is a specially designed environment that has filtered air, with the air passed through a High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter. A HEPA fitter trays micronmeter sized particles through a combination of impaction, diffusion and interception. In addition to the filtered air, the space has an airflow that keeps enter particles that might be generated in a state of constant suspension until such a time when they are expelled from the room space via a set number of air changes. To further raise the cleanliness level, any people entering the cleanroom wear special gowns, plus gloves and marks. Finally, the room is also subject to a proceduralized cleaning (with a detergent) and disinfection regime.
The experiment with potatoes in such environments has been undertaken by Wisconsin Seed Potato Certification Program. This is a long established program, which has been running for over one hundred years. The aim is to generate high quality, disease-free tubers.
The new technology that has allowed for higher quality tubers is the use of a cleanroom environment. According to Controlled Environments, this is environment helps to prevent tubers from becoming disease with bacteria and viruses. This is enhanced by growing the tubers in a container filled with a jelly-like growth medium, which contains bacteria- and virus-inhibiting chemicals
Tests to date have produced a host of good quality potatoes from a range of popular varieties, such as Caribou Russet, Magic Molly, German Butterball. One of the scientists involved, Andy Witherell, puts forward in a research note: “This is a good place to grow plants because we’ve got a system that’s really clean. The Biotron [the name for the environment] air is filtered, and we have a cleanroom to work with.”
