I would like to have the little yellow potato spikes to put into our Idaho® baked potatoes here at the restaurant, as we are very proud of serving only Idaho® potatoes. How do I go about ordering those for our restaurant?

The plastic potato pins are an interesting piece of history and were used for many years to promote Idaho® potatoes on the menus of restaurants across the United States. They are no longer available.

The original version was a paper sign with two holes in it that held a toothpick that was then inserted into a freshly baked Idaho® potato. The next version is the one you wrote us about, it was bright yellow plastic with the “Grown in Idaho” seal in brown. With both there were occasional complaints from customers or guests that the toothpick or plastic pic broke off and could be accidently bit into.  So, a food safe paper sign was eventually produced. You can still find examples of this marketing tool on the baked potatoes from the Lawry’s Prime Rib restaurant chain (owned by the same group that produces Lawry’s salt and some additional spices).

There is no economical way, to my knowledge, to re-produce these in small quantities. We used to order a quarter million of them a year to get the price point down.

Thanks for bringing back a fun history topic from the Idaho Potato Commission archives, sorry we are not able to help you out.