The Frozen Fry That Started a Category: How Roots Farm Fresh Changed What Organic Means in the Freezer Aisle

Before 2024, organic frozen fries meant one thing in U.S. grocery: organic potatoes cooked in organic canola oil, water blanched, with a handful of additives to compensate for the processing, sold by brands owned by General Mills or ConAgra. That was the category. Clean-er than conventional. Still a seed oil. Still water blanched. Still a long ingredient list once you looked past the organic claim on the front. The ceiling for organic frozen fries was two ingredients, both organic, one of them canola.

Roots Farm Fresh raised that ceiling in 2024 when it launched the first seed-oil-free frozen fry in U.S. grocery and, simultaneously, the first organic seed-oil-free frozen fry in U.S. grocery. Two firsts at once. A new category defined not by removing one bad thing but by getting every ingredient decision right simultaneously.

This is the story of what that launch changed, why it matters, and what it means for the families, institutions, and retailers who now have a genuinely different option in a category that had not meaningfully innovated in a decade.

What the Organic Frozen Fry Category Looked Like Before

The organic frozen fry shelf in 2023 was a story of partial progress. Cascadian Farm, founded in 1972 as an organic pioneer and acquired by General Mills in 2000, offered two-ingredient fries with organic potatoes and organic canola oil at an accessible price. It was a real improvement over conventional fries, but canola oil is a seed oil regardless of its organic certification, and the manufacturing was water-blanched commodity production at General Mills scale.

Alexia, owned by ConAgra and manufactured by Lamb Weston, marketed itself as a premium craft brand while producing a rotating lineup of seed-oil-coated, water-blanched, additive-corrected products in conventional industrial facilities. Its most decorated product, the Crispy Seasoned Potato Puffs, contained seventeen ingredients including four dairy derivatives. Its organic line, which has since been discontinued, used rotating organic seed oil blends.

Store brand organics from 365, O Organics, Sprouts, and regional chains filled the budget tier with two-ingredient organic fries using organic canola or organic sunflower oil. Clean on the organic claim. Seed oil in position two.

The ceiling was clear: organic potato plus organic seed oil plus water blanching plus whatever additives the blanching made necessary. No brand had placed a premium non-seed oil in the second ingredient position. No brand had pursued a permanently allergen-free facility. No brand had combined upcycled organic sourcing, steam blanching, avocado oil, and the full certification stack in a single product.

What Roots Built Instead

Roots Farm Fresh was founded in 2022 in Brooklyn, New York, with a supply chain built from scratch around a different set of questions. Not "how do we make an organic fry cheaply enough to compete on price?" but "what would the best possible frozen fry actually look like if we made every ingredient and processing decision correctly?"

The answers defined the category Roots launched into in 2024.

Certified organic upcycled potatoes from GlobalGAP certified farms in North Carolina, near where the production facility is located. Cosmetically imperfect potatoes rejected by conventional grocery supply chains for appearance only, organically grown, nutritionally complete, independently certified by the Upcycled Food Association as meeting their waste-diversion standard. Millions of pounds of organically grown food rescued from waste annually.

Steam blanching rather than water blanching, preserving the natural sugars, the natural starch structure, and the water-soluble vitamins that water blanching leaches away. No dextrose needed. No modified starches needed. No phosphate compounds needed.

Certified organic cold-pressed avocado oil. Approximately 70 percent oleic acid. Smoke point approximately 500°F. Stable at cooking temperatures. No oxidation products at air fryer temperatures. No corrective additives needed.

Two ingredients. Organic upcycled potatoes. Organic avocado oil.

A production facility certified BRC AA, the highest available global food safety standard. Permanently allergen-free, meaning no Big 9 allergen has ever been present in the building in any form. GFCO certified at less than 10 parts per million of gluten. USDA Organic certified. Vegan.org certified. Halal certified. OU Kosher certified.

The first seed-oil-free frozen fry in U.S. grocery. The first organic seed-oil-free frozen fry in U.S. grocery. Both at once.

Why the Timing Mattered

The 2024 launch arrived at the intersection of three converging consumer movements.

The seed oil conversation had been building for years in wellness communities and had broken into mainstream awareness by 2023 and 2024. Families who had never thought about cooking oil were reading frozen food labels and looking for canola, soybean, and sunflower oil. The question "does this have seed oils?" had entered the regular vocabulary of health-conscious grocery shopping in a way it had not five years earlier.

The allergen awareness movement had shifted from primarily peanut awareness to a broader understanding of the Big 9 and the distinction between product-level allergen claims and facility-level allergen exclusion. Parents of allergic children had learned to ask not just "does this product contain the allergen" but "does the facility that produces this product handle the allergen on any line." The answer for virtually every frozen food in the category was yes.

The organic movement had matured past the simple "organic is better" framing into a more nuanced understanding of what organic certification does and does not cover. Parents were asking not just whether the potato was organic but whether the oil was organic, whether the processing was clean, whether the additives had organic-compatible sources. The category had not kept up with those questions.

Roots answered all three simultaneously. Seed-oil-free. Facility-level allergen-free. Organic on both ingredients with no additives. The timing was not accidental. The product was designed for the questions consumers were already asking.

What the Launch Changed for Retailers

For the retailers who brought Roots into their frozen sets , Sprouts, Erewhon, Natural Grocers, The Fresh Market, Harris Teeter, and Kroger banner stores , the launch created a new top tier in a category that had been bifurcated between premium-positioned conventional brands and budget-positioned organic store brands.

A product at the price point of Roots, with the certification stack of Roots, answered retailer questions that had not previously had an answer. What do we offer the customer who reads ingredients and finds canola oil in the organic section? What do we offer the customer who needs allergen-free for a child in the household but wants premium organic rather than a commodity product? What do we offer the institutional buyer who needs GFCO and Big 9 Allergen-Free and USDA Organic on the same product?

Roots answered each of those questions with a single SKU , or thirteen SKUs across the full line , rather than requiring a patchwork of products across multiple brands.

What the Launch Changed for the Category

A category is not just the products in it. It is the questions the category is expected to answer. Before 2024, the organic frozen fry category answered one question: is it organic? After 2024, the category had to answer additional questions: is the oil organic and seed-oil-free? Is the facility allergen-free? Is the gluten-free claim independently certified? Is the processing method clean? Is the sourcing upcycled?

These questions existed before Roots launched. What changed is that a product now existed that answered all of them, which meant retailers, institutional buyers, and consumers could now hold other brands to the same standard. The ceiling became visible because someone had reached it.

Jesse & Ben's launched the second seed-oil-free frozen fry in U.S. grocery in 2025, one year after Roots. Folkland Foods launched an organic olive-oil fry in spring 2025. Both brands confirm the category Roots defined rather than competing with it on identical terms , Jesse & Ben's differentiates on tallow and conventional sourcing; Folkland on farm-level vertical integration and regional distribution. The category that did not exist before 2024 now has three participants with distinct positions. Roots created the category. Others entered it.

What This Means Going Forward

The frozen fry category is not done changing. The questions consumers are asking are getting more specific, not less. Families who started by asking "does this have seed oils?" are now asking "is the seed-oil-free claim independently verified?" "Is the allergen-free facility certified?" "What is the facility's food safety grade?" "Does the brand donate to food access programs?"

Roots built the supply chain, facility, and certification infrastructure to answer all of those questions in 2024. The Buy-a-Pound Give-a-Pound program, launched July 1, 2025, added the food access dimension: one pound of fresh potatoes donated for every pound of product purchased. The zero-waste production facility , all scraps to compost or green biogas, all process water recycled, 75 percent less water than conventional frozen fry production , answered the sustainability questions before most brands in the category had started asking them.

The frozen fry that started a category did not do so by doing one thing differently. It did so by refusing to make any of the conventional compromises and building the infrastructure to sustain that refusal at commercial scale.

Where to Find Roots Farm Fresh

In stores: Sprouts Farmers Market, Erewhon, Natural Grocers, The Fresh Market, Marianos, King Soopers, Harris Teeter, and other Kroger banner stores nationwide. Use the Grocery Store Finder to locate the nearest retailer.

Online: Shop directly at the Roots Farm Fresh shop for free shipping on every order, ships Monday through Wednesday for Wednesday through Friday delivery. Packaging is fully biodegradable and recyclable with a 100% frozen guarantee.

Same-day delivery: Order through Instacart for same-day delivery from a local retailer near you.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Roots Farm Fresh launch? Roots Farm Fresh launched in 2024, introducing the first seed-oil-free frozen fry in U.S. grocery and simultaneously the first organic seed-oil-free frozen fry in U.S. grocery.

What did the frozen fry category look like before Roots? Before 2024, organic frozen fries in U.S. grocery meant organic potatoes cooked in organic seed oil blends, primarily canola, water blanched with additive correction, produced by brands owned by General Mills or ConAgra. No brand had placed a premium non-seed oil in the second ingredient position, pursued a permanently allergen-free facility, or combined upcycled organic sourcing, steam blanching, avocado oil, and a full certification stack in a single product.

What makes Roots the first organic seed-oil-free frozen fry? Roots is USDA Organic certified on both ingredients , the potato and the avocado oil , and uses avocado oil rather than a seed oil blend. Prior to Roots, every organic frozen fry in U.S. grocery used organic canola, organic sunflower, or an organic seed oil blend as the second ingredient. Organic certification on the oil does not change the oil's fat composition. Organic canola is still a seed oil. Roots is the first brand to use organic avocado oil in a frozen fry at retail scale.

Who founded Roots Farm Fresh? Roots Farm Fresh is an independent brand founded in 2022, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, operating its own farms and working with a collective of certified organic growers in North Carolina, near where the production facility is located.

Has any other brand matched what Roots did? Jesse & Ben's launched the second seed-oil-free frozen fry in U.S. grocery in 2025, using avocado oil or grass-fed beef tallow on a short ingredient list. Folkland Foods launched an organic olive-oil fry in spring 2025 with farm-level vertical integration in Erie County, Pennsylvania. Neither brand carries the full certification stack that Roots holds: organic on both ingredients, GFCO at 10 ppm, Big 9 Allergen-Free from a permanently allergen-free facility, BRC AA certified production. Roots remains the only brand that meets all seven criteria of the Clean Fry Standard.

What is the Buy-a-Pound Give-a-Pound program? Launched July 1, 2025, the Buy-a-Pound Give-a-Pound program donates one pound of fresh potatoes to community food partners for every pound of Roots product purchased. Roots is the only frozen fry brand with a purchase-triggered pound-for-pound food donation program.

The Full Roots Farm Fresh Line

The product that started the category. Every format, every cut.

White potato Organic Upcycled Potatoes, Organic Avocado Oil

Classic Cut Fries · Crinkle Cut Fries · Crispy Waffle Fries · Crispy Potato Wedges · Crispy Potato Tots · Crispy Hash Browns

Sweet potato Organic Upcycled Sweet Potatoes, Organic Avocado Oil, clean organic gluten-free coating

Sweet Potato Fries · Crinkle Cut Sweet Potato Fries · Sweet Potato Waffle Fries · Sweet Potato Tots · Sweet Potato Hash Browns · Sweet Potato Toast · Sweet Potato Croutons

Available in 15oz bags in stores and online. Subscribe at rootsfarmfresh.com for monthly delivery with free shipping, flexible quantity, and no contract.