TRAVERSE CITY -- "Welcome to Chip Nirvana"...that's one of Great Lakes Potato Chip Company's slogans.

Ed Girrbach and his son Chris run the chip business that Ed says kind of started by happenstance.

"We always loved traverse city especially downtown so we thought it would always be fun to have a business downtown," says Ed Girrbach.
     
After opening Pangeas Pizza on Front Street in Traverse City five years ago...Ed and Chris wanted to expand their food business and try something different.

"Potato chips came along one day just as sort of fluke.  When Chris asked me what do you like, well besides pizza, potato chips.  So, he said lets do potato chips!  So we said, yeah lets take a look at potato chips.  We did some research," says Girrbach.

The research eventually led to a full blown business and of course started with potatoes.

"We discovered that Michigan is one of the top potato growers in the nation...we a farm around Big Rapids. It's a family owned farm. The farm plants about 5,000 acres of these chipping potatoes," says Girrbach.

Once the potatoes are sorted through the process begins.

"We sort them, then clean them, we don't peel them we leave the skin on our potatoes.  we think it tastes better.  they then go through our slicer and into frying bats.  we use a kettle that holds about 150 gallons of sunflower oil and we cook at 350 degrees for about 4 minutes.  then take them out, go into seasoning table and season them...go into tubs, take tubs over to bagging."

There you have it: Great Lakes Potato Chips. 

"Right now we do original sea salt, then salt and vinegar and a barbeque flavor...We're kind of working on a cherry chip, cherry jalapeno or cherry barbeque to have ready for Cherry Festival next season," says Girrbach.

Great Lakes Potato Chips were recently picked up by a Grand Rapids distributor who will start selling the chips statewide in December.

The company plans to also start selling their chips in Ohio and Indiana.  For a complete list of the more than 100 stores that carry the chips here in northern Michigan, check their website: http://greatlakespotatochips.com/index.html