STEW LEONARD’S DANBURY STORE OFFERS
FRESH-MADE KETTLE-STYLE POTATO CHIPS

DANBURY, Conn.,May 31, 2006 – Stew Leonard’s fresh foods market is well known for their slogan "you’d have to own a cow to get fresher milk." The company’s latest addition to their made-in-front-of-the-customer product offerings may prompt a new slogan: "you’d have to go to a country fair to get fresher chips."

Stew Leonard’s Danbury store is the first Stew Leonard’s location to offer all-natural kettle-style potato chips, with each hand-made batch prepared right in front of the customer and sold fresh from the fryer, often still warm. The thick and crispy chips are available in eight-ounce bags for $3.99; more than 2,000 bags a week are sold.

"The key to the success of Stew’s Kettle-Style Potato Chips is that we sample them all day long. Once customers taste them, they can not resist buying a bag," said Art Weiss, Stew Leonard’s director of fresh prepared products. "We frequently hear customers say ‘it reminds me of something you can only get at a country fair,’ or ‘these taste just like the kind my mother used to make.’ It truly is a unique taste experience compared to packaged kettle-style potato chips."

Another key to the chips’ popularity is the type of potatoes used. Stew Leonard’s Kettle-Style Potato Chips are made from Idaho Russet Burbank chef-style potatoes – giant one-pound potatoes that result in not only a golden, more flavorful chip, but one that is three times larger than typical bagged chips.

Each batch takes about 15 minutes from start to finish. After the potatoes are washed and sliced, they are put in a kettle of 100% soybean oil (a trans-fat and cholesterol free oil) and hand-raked to prevent the potatoes from clumping or sticking together. After cooking for 10 minutes, they are taken out of the kettle and set on a wire rack to drain off any excess oil and seasoned. Since there are no additives or preservatives, the all-natural chips are best eaten within four to five days.

"While the chips are labor-intensive to make, we believe it is worth the effort, because Stew Leonard’s is the only place in the area where you can get fresh-made kettle-style potato chips," said Dan Arthur, Danbury store president.

Stew Leonard’s, a family-owned and operated grocery founded in 1969, has three stores in Norwalk and Danbury, Conn. and Yonkers, N.Y., with additional stores planned in East Farmingdale, N.Y. and Orange, Conn. The company was named among FORTUNE magazine’s "100 Best Companies to Work" for the past four consecutive years.