Finished Jones’ Chips move along the elevated line high above the production floor while (lower right) a potato is pushed manually through a spare slicer head that cuts the potato chip into its very distinctive shape.

Marcelled

JONES’ CHIPS

Our story on Mansfield’s very-own, Jones' Potato Chip Company actually has its origins in my youthful memory of their delicious smell as they cooked in a nearby neighborhood on Bowman St., more than 60 years ago.

Later, a larcenous raccoon with good taste moved the story along when it stole our bag of Jones Chips on a camping trip--and I even more recently offered to share that photo with the company.

That led to my acquaintance with President Bob Jones and a tour of their modern facility just a mile or so north of the origin of those delightful smells, still firm in the memory from my youth.

Bob’s father Frederick launched his business by hand cooking his sliced potatoes in kettles in that original building about the size of a three car garage. While that cooking process became fully automated by the 1970s, it is interesting to note kettle-cooking has returned to the industry as a trendy variation of his original production technique.

Jones enjoyed rapid growth and four expansions to his first shop then expanded once again into the old A & P grocery store just a bit south of his original location on Bowman St., and adjacent to the old location of the Gorman Rupp Pump Co.

The company operated there from 1978 to 1988 when they grew once again into a 30,000 square foot facility on National Parkway. They have 50,000 square feet of space in their current building.

Bob’s older brother Steve ran the company for 30 years after their father’s retirement in 1966. Bob has been at the helm of the family firm since May of 1996.

Today they consume more than eight million pounds of potatoes annually in the production of 2 million pounds of their tasty products.  Most of the weight loss is in the form of water in the raw potatoes.

Potatoes are loaded into the front end of their production facility where they are washed, then skinned in a large, abrasive drum. A sharp-eyed lady then culls damaged potatoes before they enter the slicing apparatus.

From there the chips are blown dry, twice, then plopped into a huge fryer for cooking at a very precisely controlled temperature and length of time. Careful selections of two cooking oils and maintenance of fresh oil quality are also principal ingredients in their product’s distinctly, pleasurable taste.

The cooked chips are de-oiled and dried and shaken and inspected and seasoned and inspected some more as they accelerate their way to a highly automated packaging line before being boxed and shipped to the retailer.
Bob points to designs in their new facility that will allow the future addition of a second production line. When that is added with more production hours, the stage is set for their next and anticipated spurt of growth.

As I walked to my vehicle I could not help but wonder what would have happened to that huge and now-vacant automobile plant out on Fourth St., if the Jones boys had applied their work and product quality ethics to building cars.

Company president Bob Jones (left) tracks the final stage of packaging in the highly automated end of the production line as a worker prepares to move the latest filled, box to the shipping department.