All Potato Chips Are Not Created Equal, Some Are Better Made®
“They pack some serious pucker power,” boasts Rachel Ray Magazine of Better Made®’s salt & vinegar flavor. Comedian/magician Penn Jillette takes it a step further in the January issue of Maxim magazine, where he chronicles his 10 favorite potato chips. “These are American chips exactly as they should be: not too crunchy, a little bit mushy,” he said.
While celebrity acclaim is nice, it’s that third endorsement that gives Better Made® CEO Salvatore Cipriano and COO Mike Schena the greatest sense of accomplishment. “The people are so loyal,” says Schena. “I’ve been involved with three different snack food companies over the course of my career, and Better Made® is the strongest label I’ve ever seen. Period.”
From Cross and Peters to Better Made
Cross and Peters was founded in 1930 with one goal: to make better potato chips. Four years later, the company was incorporated by cousins Cross Moceri and Peter Cipriano as Better Made®.
Now well into its third generation, Better Made® remains a family-owned business; however, the Moceris are no longer involved, as they sold their shares to the Ciprianos just four years ago. “Our goal has always been to be the best, not the biggest,” says Cipriano. “As long as we’re successful in continuing to diversify our operation, while maintaining the level of quality, Better Made® can easily be sustained for another 70 years.”
Only the Best for Better Made®
“Just like you can buy a Lincoln or a Focus, you can buy a Better Made® chip or one that’s inferior,” says Cipriano. “Our chips, pork rinds, and popcorn are all number one in Detroit for a reason — we’ve never taken the cheap or easy way out.”
For Better Made®, that means using the highest quality potatoes and cottonseed oil. “A lot of companies will use cheaper oil like soybean to save 10 cents here and there,” says Schena. “When you do that, you sacrifice flavor. There used to be 22 companies producing potato chips in Detroit in the 1930s; today we’re the only one left. Consistent quality is the differentiator.”
That quality starts with Michigan potatoes. Schena says Michigan has evolved into one of the leading states for chip-variety potatoes, due to its vast acreage and soil climate. “Just like Better Made® customers are loyal to us, we’re loyal to them,” says Schena. “We buy products in our region, we manufacture in our region, and we sell the products in our region. The money stays here.”
That doesn’t mean that people outside of the region are unfamiliar with Better Made®, especially since launching bettermadesnackfoods.com five years ago. “We’re getting a lot of online orders from Florida, California, and Arizona,” says Schena. “These are typically Michiganders who’ve retired out of state and miss the chips they grew up with and raised their families with. It’s nice to know our products inspire that kind of loyalty.”
Variety Is the Spice of Life (As Long as It’s Not Curry)
Better Made®’s potato chips come in all textures and flavors. There’s original, wavy, and kettle, low-fat or baked, three different kinds of barbecue, sour cream & onion, dill, ketchup, salt & vinegar, salt & pepper, Sicilian style, and cheddar & sour cream. They also make popcorn, pork rinds, corn chips, pretzels, cheese puffs, tortilla chips, beef jerky, a variety of dips and salsas, and chocolate covered potato chips and pretzels.
One of their most recent products, potato sticks (a.k.a. “shoestrings”), has really taken off. “We were looking for a way to differentiate ourselves, and everything just fell into place,” says Schena. “One of the biggest shoestring potato manufacturers shut down, just as the people from French’s came to see us. They were looking for an alternate plant to produce shoestrings, and we realized that we had the capacity. We ended up taking over that part of their business, and now we’re the largest shoestring manufacturer in the country.”
One of the reasons Better Made® has been so successful is their willingness to try new things and different combinations of those new items. For example, sour cream & onion wasn’t selling well on the original chip, so they put the flavor on a wavy one, and it took off like wildfire. The dill flavor didn’t sell in a 3-ounce bag, so they tried a 1-ounce and put it on a wavy chip; the new bag and texture worked like a charm. Curry, however, didn’t do well, regardless of chip texture or packaging. The key is to continuously evaluate the marketplace and develop products that meet that demand.
Potatoes Get a Bad Rap
Potatoes contain all kinds of important vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C, potassium, B6, iron, and zinc. Still, that doesn’t keep the potato from being blamed for the current obesity epidemic.
“I was at the airport wearing a Better Made® shirt,” says Schena. “Two women approached me and told me how much they loved our potato chips. Turns out, they were nutritionists. The point is that there’s nothing wrong with potato chips — in moderation.”
Still, Better Made® has done a great job of diversifying their product line to appeal to any diet. Soon they’ll premier five new flavors of popcorn, including cinnamon, bruschetta, and sun-dried tomato & parmesan. “And it’ll be done on white popcorn, so no one has to worry about orange fingers,” notes Schena.
A Very Simple Formula
Going forward, Better Made® is looking into packaging their shoestring potatoes into canisters and shipping them to the Caribbean. They’re also looking very seriously at taking their products into Canada. How will they ensure that they continue to be successful?
“There was a recent survey about the 10 most successful companies in the United States, regarding why they were so successful,” says Cipriano. “The answer was so simple, it was difficult for those who administered the survey to believe the results.
Service companies provided the best service, and manufacturers made the best products. It really is that simple. If you take care of your customers and give them the best products at an affordable price, you’re going to do well. We’re here to prove it.”
Just the Facts
- Detroit has the highest per capita consumption of potato chips in the world.
- Better Made® manufactures about 65 bags of chips per minute on each of its 27 machines, and 10,000-11,000 pounds of finished product per hour at their Detroit-based facility.
- Their top five best-selling products are Original Potato Chips, Original Barbecue, Sweet Barbecue, Hot Barbecue, and Salt & Vinegar.
- The perfect chip-variety potato is the size of a baseball. Anything bigger won’t fit into the bags.
- A potato is 75 percent water; 100 pounds of potatoes only yields 25 pounds of finished product.
- Better Made® quality control experts are trained to weed out more than 20 potential defects, including greening (just what it sounds like) and hollow heart (a hole in the middle of the chip that results from excess rainfall).
Better Made® & Plante & Moran: Going Way Beyond Business
Plante & Moran has been serving Better Made® for as long as Sal Cipriano can remember. “Dan Doescher actually did his internship here,” says Cipriano. “He’s as close to this company as one can possibly be without actually being employed, and he’s been extremely helpful to me, the business, and the family.”
Cipriano continues, “Plante & Moran is the premier accounting firm. The quality of people, the service, the knowledge — we know we won’t have problems if we follow their advice. And we consult with them well beyond just the business part of things. They treat us like we’re much bigger than what we are, and we’re extremely happy to have that relationship.”
