Potatoes New Zealand Charitable Trust

The Trust’s purposes include:

1. Health
   Advancement of New Zealanders’ health through promoting and encouraging the consumption of New Zealand potatoes and the health values of such produce;
2. Education
   Advancement of education, through support of training and education within the New Zealand potato industry and to assist with the education of persons associated with the New Zealand potato industry;
3. Research
   Promotion, encouraging and fostering of research in relation to potatoes in New Zealand and the dissemination of such research for public use and for the improvement of the public’s general knowledge of potatoes within New Zealand.

Trust income is derived from several streams, including:

• Royalties from Potatoes New Zealand’s investment in the seed potato breeding programme, being run by the Crown Research Institute Plant and Food Research.
• Fundraising activities, such as an annual golf tournament and awards dinner.

Grants:

Trustees decide how the money from this pool is spent. Much of it is devoted to potato research, such as efforts to create breeds of potato that have higher nutritional values than existing varieties.

The Trustees also consider applications for grants from groups outside the potato industry who support and are working towards the trust’s aims.

Examples of previous grants:

• To fund PhD students into research for the potato industry.
• To assist potato researchers to travel to overseas conferences to gain wider industry knowledge.
• To provide potato nutritional information and cooking skills to some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable children who attend the Stand Children’s Services villages.