PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Despite several days of rain, Maine Potato Board officials said that they had success showcasing Maine’s signature crop at the Eastern States Exposition.
Commonly called the Big E, the event ran from Sept. 14-30 in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Maine potato industry is represented each year in the State of Maine building on the Avenue of States, where baked potatoes with all of the toppings are sold.
Don Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board, said on Monday that staff at the organization took turns this year traveling to the fair to oversee the potato sales program.
“I think overall that it was a success for us,” he said. “I don’t have any tally yet of how much profit we made. The big issue was that we had three or four days of bad weather, and when you are having an outdoor fair like that, the last thing you want is bad weather.”
The income from the sale of potatoes helps underwrite costs for various Maine Potato Board activities. The Big E is the 7th largest fair in the U.S.
People line up well before the 10 a.m. opening of the Maine building to get their much desired Maine baked potato, according to Flannery.
Flannery said that a downside to the fair this year was that the dates made it hard for growers and others involved in the industry to attend, as it fell during potato harvest.
The executive director estimated that sales were likely the same or slightly less than last year.
“All in all, I think we did pretty well,” he said.
This year was a record breaking year for attendance at the Big E, according to fair officials, with more than 1.5 million people flocking to the event.
