THE RUNDOWN

369,850

143,566

Production Line

Bagley says the key to product quality is “making our chips the old-fashioned way” using automation, but still involving the human touch to sort and select the finest potatoes.

Once the frying process is over, a conveyor removes the fried chips from the oil and takes them to another set of inspectors. Chips that make the grade are moved via a vibrating conveyor to the seasoning drum, which rotates while oil and seasonings are applied.

“We used to season by hand but now we have an industrial-size seasoner because it gives us uniformity and reliability,” Kali explains. “Seasoning by hand just wasn’t giving us that consistency.”

From there the chips go to a packaging machine, which measures eight ounces of chips and drops them into bags to complete the process.

“Every single batch of our chips is fried and inspected by hand before it goes into a bag,” Kali says. “It takes a lot of love and care.”

Once Bagley had the Downey’s chips where she wanted them, she set about getting them into more people’s hands.

Between August 2022 and January 2023, Downey’s delivered to 227 stores, up from 136 locations. The growth spurt was primarily due to Downey’s expansion into all of Kroger’s stores in southeast Michigan,

Potato Progress

Once potatoes become Downey’s Potato Chips, they’re inspected (upper left), flavored (upper right), and sorted before packaging (lower left). The chips are sold at grocery stores throughout metro Detroit.

and higher sales among stores like Westborn Market, Papa Joe’s, Nino Salvaggio, Vince and Joe’s, Hollywood Market, Holiday Market, and a few Meijer outlets.

It took several months after the Kroger decision was made to deliver chips to all of the stores. To meet the schedule, Downey’s boosted production by 67 percent and augmented its in-house delivery department with a distribution company.

“When we were getting ready for the Kroger expansion, I wanted to make sure we were completely buttoned up and ready to under-promise and over-deliver,” Kali recalls. “We had to add a couple thousand extra pounds of potatoes, but other than that we didn’t have to stretch too much. I think that says a lot about the capacity we have here.”

To meet the increased demand, the company bought a new peeler/washer last year that had a $30,000 price tag. According to Bagley, in its current space and equipment, Downey’s could pump out as many as 6,000 bags of chips per day.

She may need that capacity if her expansion plans come to fruition.

“I would love to make our way across and up Michigan,” she says. “I would like to make a bag of chips accessible to every Michigander.”