FDA clears J.R. Simplot’s Innate™ potato safe

The J.R. Simplot Company recently completed the food and feed safety consultation with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its first generation of Innate™ potato varieties. The FDA concluded the Innate potato is as safe and nutritious as conventional potatoes.

Innate potatoes have fewer black spots from bruising stay whiter longer when cut or peeled and have lower levels of naturally-occurring asparagine resulting in less acrylamide when cooked at high temperatures. Innate potatoes are also less prone to pressure bruising during storage resulting in less potato waste and potentially millions of dollars in savings to growers every year.

“The Innate potato is the most promising advancement in the potato industry I’ve seen in my 30 years studying agriculture” said David S. Douches Ph.D. at the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Michigan State University who has implemented field trials of Innate. “This potato delivers significant health and sustainability benefits all by using the potato’s own DNA. Such advancements haven’t been possible using traditional breeding.”

The FDA statement comes after the recent U. S. Department of Agriculture deregulation of Innate potatoes. The FDA’s safety consultation on Innate potatoes was voluntarily requested by Simplot as a further evaluation of the Innate technology which has been in development for more than a decade. These federal clearances involved years of technical review and a thorough public comment period that drew the support of 14 leading potato research universities in the U.S. and Europe.

The three Innate varieties are expected to be available in limited quantities beginning in 2015 in the fresh and fresh-cut markets.