DENVER — Sanjiv Kakkar of Lawrenceville, NJ, was seated as a Board Member on the United States Potato Board (USPB) at the organization’s 40th Annual Meeting, March 15-16, in Colorado Springs, CO. He was named to serve on the Board by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on February 6, 2012, for a one-year term ending February 28, 2013. New Board Members serving on the USPB in their first three-year term can be reappointed to serve a second consecutive three-year term.
Kakkar is an importer and has been in the potato growing and frozen processing industry since 1998. He works with Global Reliance, Inc., an entity utilizing the growing agricultural and processing community in India to service North American food processors with products not easily available in the United States. Santana and Fry Sona are the varieties Kakkar works with, and he is also involved with mushrooms.
“I am a first generation entrepreneur and have been in food processing since 1995,” Kakkar said. “I have experience, background and insights to the global potato industry.” He has previously served as a USPB Board Member representing importers.
Kakkar attended the University of Ulster-Ulster Polytechnic, Belfast, UK. He is married to Anita Kakkar and they have a son, Sidharth; and a daughter, Ana.
Authorized under the 1971 Potato Research and Promotion Act, the USPB is composed of producers, importers and a public member appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture. Producer members are nominated at state and local producer meetings and by mail ballot. Each state is entitled to at least one producer member, and additional members are allotted on the basis of the volume of production. Importer members are nominated by importers, and the number of members is related to the volume of imports, up to a maximum of five importer members.
The USPB administers an industry-funded national research and promotion program to increase US exports and domestic potato consumption. USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service oversees the operations of the USPB. More information about the research and promotion programs is available at www.ams.usda.gov/FVPromotion.
For more information on the USPB as the nation’s potato marketing organization, positioned as the “catalyst for positive change,” and the central organizing force in implementing programs that will increase demand for potatoes, please visit www.uspotatoes.com.
David Fairbourn is Manager, Industry Communications & Policy, at the United States Potato Board in Denver. The mission of the USPB is to increase demand for potatoes and potato products through an integrated promotion program, thereby providing US producers with expanding markets for their production. David can be contacted at 303-369-7783 or david.fairbourn@uspotatoes.com. For complete information about the programs, ROI results, resources and tools available to all members of the industry through the USPB, please visit www.uspotatoes.com. The United States Potato Board—Maximizing Return on Grower Investment.
Source: United States Potato Board
