The Sidor family has grown potatoes on the same Mattituck property for more than a century. In fact, the first crops were planted at the Oregon Road farm in 1910.
The Long Island Rail Road, meanwhile, has shipped potatoes from the North Fork since the mid-19th century.
Under the current code, Southold Town farmers can mostly just sell their crops as-is to retail or wholesale customers. (Credit: Vera Chinese)
Doug Cooper has no interest in bottling salsa at Cooper Farms, his Mattituck business.
“At my age, I’m not going to get into something like that,” he said.
But the prospect of a Cooper’s North Fork Salsa, or Cooper’s New York City Salsa — pick a name — is one that’s being used by some in local agriculture as the perfect example of a product that could fetch more profits than shipping crates of tomatoes through middlemen in New York and elsewhere. (more…)
JENNIFER GUSTAVSON FILE PHOTO | Sidor Farms in Cutchogue has received $50,000 from the state to expand its potato chip manufacturing operation.
The latest round of the New York Regional Economic Development Council awards were announced Wednesday and more than $4 million is coming directly to the North Fork.
A total of $715.9 million in state funds and tax credits were awarded to the 10 regional councils across New York. Long Island is receiving $83 million for a total of 98 projects, the most of any region in the state.
Nine of those projects are on the North Fork.
Below is a list of each of the local projects, the name of the applicant, the state’s description of the project and the amount awarded.
Projects are listed in descending order based on the total number of dollars received.
Town of Riverhead Community Development Agency
Project: EPCAL Sewer Treatment Upgrade
Funding: $1.34 million
Description: Upgrade of Calverton sewage treatment plant from secondary to tertiary treatment, which will provide both economic development and environmental benefits to this regionally significant project site with immediate potential for job creation benefit.
EBDK Research at Calverton
Project: CARE NY (Calverton Addiction Research and Education Research Center)
Funding: $1 million
Description: CARE NY (Calverton Addiction Research Education), a substance addiction Research Center and a separate Recovery Center, will construct an addiction research and education center at the Calverton Enterprise Park to complement an adjacent proposed treatment center.
Peconic Landing
Project: Special Needs and Acute Rehabilitation Center
Funding: $800,000
Description: This $44 million project is the expansion of dementia care and rehabilitation facility in Greenport.
Long Island Wine Council
Project: Access East End
Funding: $285,000
Description: This program is a multimodal transportation and marketing initiative to generate visitor traffic from the NY metro area, east coast, national and international source markets during off-season and midweek periods. By opening the East End of Long Island to new customers from the NY metro area and other east coast population centers, we expect that this program will draw thousands of new visitors to the region.
Skydive Long Island
Project: Altitude Express Indoor Skydiving Facility
Funding: $250,000
Description: Altitude Express Inc. will build an indoor skydiving attraction on Long Island which will operate year round. The company anticipates this attraction will draw another 50,000-100,000 visitors to the area annually.
East End Arts Humanities Council
Project: Long Island Winterfest
Funding: $162,000
Description: East End Arts is requesting grant funds to support an expanded marketing strategy and to hire a festival coordinator to support the implementation of a five-year strategic plan toward a goal of growth and sustainability of LIWinterfest: Live on the Vine, an award winning agricultural tourism program designed to generate tourism traffic to the East End of Long Island during the slowest months.
East End Arts Humanities Council
Project: Winterfest Expansion Project
Funding: $99,408
Description: East End Arts will expand marketing strategies and hire a festival coordinator to improve growth and sustainability of its LI Winterfest — an award winning agri-cultural tourism program. The six-week program of live music performances at wineries, theaters and area hotels, along with special promotions at restaurants, hotels, transportation companies and area businesses generates tourism traffic to East End of Long Island during the off-season months.
Sidor Farms
Project: Business Expansion
Funding: $50,000
Description: The Cutchogue company will expand its potato chip manufacturing operation and tour facility including a museum on the History of Long Island Potato Farming.
Ultra Motion
Project: Advanced Manufacturing Skills Program
Funding: $30,000
Description: Ultra Motion LLC of Cutchogue will train six workers in IPC (Institute for Printed Circuits) J-STD-001D Soldering Certification, computer-aided design, inventory control, and supply chain management.
RACHEL YOUNG PHOTO
A public hearing about the proposed expansion of the Cutchogue Business Center will take place at the Southold Town Planning Board’s next regular meeting on Dec. 16, planning board members announced during their public meeting Monday afternoon.
In August, the Southold Town Planning Board reviewed an engineer’s report on the property owner’s plan to construct four new buildings at the Oregon Road industrial park. The Cutchogue Business Center is owned by Mark Miller and his father, James, who both live in Southold.
“It’ll be a place where local, food-related manufacturers can produce their products and, if they become successful enough, expand to purchase more lots,” said Mark in August. “We’re aggressively looking to develop the property.”
The new buildings will range in size from 5,000 to 11,000 square feet at the Cutchogue site, where existing tenants include North Fork Potato Chips and A Taste of the North Fork, Mark Miller said this summer.
Planning Board Member Martin Sidor, who is the owner of North Fork Potato Chips, recused himself from voting about the public hearing during Monday’s meeting.
When asked if North Fork Potato Chips was looking to expand its production facilities in the Cutchogue Business Center, Mr. Sidor said that plans were “in the works.”
SIDOR FARM COURTESY PHOTO | A sunflower maze in the shape of the North Fork Potato Chips’s logo is located at the intersection of Route 48 and Cox Lane in Cutchogue.
North Fork Potato Chips has created the area’s first sunflower maze in Cutchogue.
The local potato chip company, which is owned by Sidor Farm in Mattituck, opened the nearly 3-acre sunflower maze at the intersection of Route 48 and Cox Lane on Aug. 4.
Carol Sidor, who owns North Fork Potato Chips with her husband, Martin, said several varieties of sunflower seeds were planted in May to resemble the company’s logo.
“We use sunflower oil to make our chips,” Ms. Sidor said. “We grew two fields last year, but [Tropical Storm Irene] destroyed everything.”
The sunflower maze is open everyday at 10 a.m., weather permitting. Admission costs $10 for adults; $5 for children ages 4 to 12 and free for children age 3 and under.
Pick up Thursday’s paper to read more about this story.
[nggallery id=372 template=galleryview]KATHARINE SCHROEDER PHOTO |
North Fork Potato Chips won a federal grant last week and is now planning to expand its marketing reach, company officials said Thursday.
Carol Sidor, who owns the 170-acre Sidor Farm in Mattituck with her husband, Martin, said she’s “very pleased and excited” about winning a $49,990 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and hopes the additional funding will help her family business increase its sales.
“Getting the big contracts is a hard job,” Ms. Sidor said. “I’m sure this will be a big help. We wouldn’t be able to do it otherwise.”
Candice Celestin, spokeswoman for USDA Rural Development, said the Value-Added Producer Grant Program is designed to help companies expand their businesses to a wider audience.
Out of the 298 companies that won nationwide, 21 are based in New York. The state received about $1.9 million from the grant program, she said.
Ms. Sidor said the federal funding will go toward updating North Fork Potato Chips’ website and brochures. The company has also started working with Northport-based marketing firm Slightly Mad Communications to help boost sales.
One of the consultant’s suggestions that Ms. Sidor said she’s looking into is sending samples to hotels located throughout the state in order to secure new contracts.
Now that North Fork Potato Chips has received additional funding for marketing, Ms. Sidor said she believes it will also help her company achieve its long-term goal: purchasing a chip plant.
The chip plant would have an educational component for children to learn about how potato chips are made, as well as the history of the Long Island potato, she said.
“We’ll now be able to market without a worry,” Ms. Sidor said. “In the meantime, it allows us to expand into something that, perhaps, we don’t even know about yet.”
Sora Stoda removes imperfections in potatoes at the North Fork Potato Chip facility in Cutchogue on Thursday.
Since she was a child, Sora Stoda, 21, of Afghanistan, loved potato chips and dreamed of opening a manufacturing company in her native Kabul to share the popular snacks with her countrymen. This week she came one step closer to achieving her goal when she visited Cutchogue’s Martin Sidor Farms, makers of North Fork Potato Chips. Carol Sidor, co-owner of the business, welcomed Stoda to her small facility on Bridge Lane and led her through the process step by step.
Stoda’s trip to the U.S. was sponsored by the Business Council for Peace (Bpeace), a non-profit group that volunteers business skills to help entrepreneurs from conflict affected countries such as Afghanistan. Stoda was identified by Bpeace as a ‘Fast Runner,’ an entrepreneur who shows great promise and drive.
After her internship in the U.S., Stoda plans to return to Kabul with a business plan and the skills to establish a potato chip manufacturing company “as soon as possible.” She hopes to use raw materials which are readily available in Afghanistan and looks forward to creating jobs and “doing something special for my people.”