Peeled and scraped potatoes for catering

A kitchen that processes large quantities of potatoes every day knows how much time peeling takes. Buying peeled potatoes, or scraped ones, takes that work out of your business. In fact that is how it started for us: in 2016 a cafeteria near our farm was fed up with peeling and cutting potatoes itself. That was the starting signal for a scraping and cutting machine on the farm, and with it for Friet van Beus. Below you can read what peeled potatoes mean for catering, how they differ from scraped potatoes and how to store them properly.

1. Scraped or peeled: what is the difference?

When potatoes are scraped, they go into a machine with a rough, abrasive inner wall. As they tumble, the thin skin is worn away layer by layer. The tuber stays full and round and you lose little potato. Here and there an eye or a small blemish may remain, which is part of a natural product.

Peeling in the strict sense is done with a knife or with steam. A thicker layer comes off and the result is smoother, but the loss is greater. In everyday practice both are often sold as peeled potatoes. For chips, scraped works very well: the cutter turns them into neat sticks anyway and you keep more yield.

2. What it brings to your kitchen

The first benefit is time. Peeling a sack of potatoes is a job nobody wants during service, and outside service it still takes hours. With scraped potatoes you go straight to cutting. That saves preparation and you need fewer hands at moments when staff are already stretched.

The kitchen also stays cleaner. No sand in the sink, no pile of peelings to dispose of and less water used. If you have your own cutting machine, it gets an even, clean tuber to work with. If you are still weighing up peeling yourself against buying in, our piece on the potato peeling machine for catering explains what your own machine involves. For the cutting itself there is our article on buying a chip cutter.

3. Storage after scraping

Once the skin is off, the potato is more vulnerable. The flesh comes into contact with oxygen, and enzymes in the tuber then turn the surface grey or brown over time. A scraped tuber also dries out faster. Industrially peeled potatoes are therefore sometimes treated with an anti-browning agent. We add nothing, so it comes down to cool storage and quick processing.

Keep scraped potatoes chilled, sealed from the air or fully covered in cold water, and away from sunlight and the heat of the fryer. Do not leave them in water longer than necessary, because starch and flavour leach out. Plan your purchasing so that you process scraped tubers promptly. If you want to cut the work down even further, freshly cut chips are the logical next step. We supply them vacuum-packed, see vacuum-packed chips.

4. What Friet van Beus supplies

We supply whole potatoes from our own crops in two forms: washed or scraped. From September to July that is Agria, and for a number of weeks in August the Frieslander. If you want to take Agria in larger quantities, see buying Agria potatoes by the sack.

Not sure which choice suits your kitchen best, or would you first like to see how our potatoes turn out in your own fryer? Call or message Thijs on 06 23972300. You are also welcome to visit the farm in Zeewolde and see how the scraping is done.

Frequently asked questions