IDAHO FALLS – Since launching a potato chip company in Arco four years ago, Don and Joanna Tarner have earned a worldwide reputation. offers 24 different flavors of homemade potato chips made from fresh Idaho Russets. No preservatives are added and Don tells EastIdahoNews.
com Redmond pink salt and peanut oil are two key ingredients that set them apart from other chip companies. “We wanted to make the most delicious potato chips we could make,” Don says. “Our chips aren’t the cheapest (price) but people want quality and we’ve been successful with that.
” Don worked in commercial real estate for years on the East Coast and bought a potato chip company as part of that venture. He recalls eating a lot of Kat and Ray’s potato chips, a staple in Hershey, Pennsylvania where he grew up. The idea for using peanut oil and fresh cut potatoes stuck with him for years after visiting a restaurant in Delaware as an adult.
Its fries were a hot seller and an employee cited those two things as the reason. Don is a fan of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and he and his wife traveled to Pocatello around 2016 to attend a concert. They fell in love with the area and decided to move.
They initially settled in Blackfoot but the duo’s upbringing and his background in real estate later prompted them to move to the Arco area. “The further out you go, the better chance (you have) of owning something,” he explains. “Joanna grew up on a farm in Missouri.
I had a beautiful farm in the ea.