Sen. Sherrod Brown tours Jones Potato Chip Co.

MANSFIELD­ - U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said he remembers chips from Jones Potato Chip Co. being a staple of his childhood in Mansfield

He recalled the local snack being sold in huge metal cans people tended to keep around the house rather than returning to the company.

He's still a fan of Jones Potato Chip Co., which dates back to 1945 — favoring the no-nonsense, unsullied regular flavor.

"I just always liked the regular flavor. Why change?" he said.

But the company, which traditionally held a territory not much larger than 40 miles in any direction from Mansfield, has diversified over the past decade.

During a Monday afternoon tour of the Jones plant at 823 Bowman St., the Democrat who now lives in the Cleveland area was told that about half of the products produced at the company are now sold in New York, carrying a label other than Jones.

Jones Potato Chip forced to tinker with flavor

CEO Bob Jones told Brown that in 2007, the family company began making kosher chips for Blooms Potato Chips, a Brooklyn, New York-based brand. During the tour, there was a chance that Brown might run into a rabbi spending four consecutive days at the plant to ensure that kosher requirements were met.

"You're not going to get Jones (label) chips today," he told the senator.

"What do you mean? Best chips in the world!" Brown said.

Vice President Darryl Jones said the company now produces some products for grocery chains, as well.

"Meijer's and Kroger's private label potato sticks? That's us," he said.

"I like it when it has our brand name on it," Bob Jones said, but he added that packages going out the door carrying other labels help make a profit.

The two brothers — the youngest of six siblings — now run the family business originally created by their late father, Frederick W. Jones, who began as a distributor of snack foods and eventually began making them himself, cooking them in a kettle and packing them by hand into wax bags. The new business operation started small, lasting two months in 1941, until World War II intervened, when Frederick Jones enlisted.

The company's official start date is now reckoned as the end of 1945, when the war ended and Frederick Jones came back home.

Bob Jones said it's estimated about 50 family members have worked at the chip-making plant since then, either making potato snacks or completing other tasks, including roof repairs.

The company marketed "fresh and local" chips — and north central Ohioans got accustomed to the Marcelled, or wavy, product made by the company. The company stuck with wavy chips for decades —  "no flat-cut chips until the 1980s," Bob Jones said.

In 2007, it began making potato sticks. That helped spur opportunities, growing the company, since relatively few food manufacturers make that product, according to the brothers, who said buyers for grocery chains aren't always interested in adding a new line of chips, but perk up when they hear the company has sticks.

The number of people employed there grew from 55 last year to about 75 this year, as business expanded, Bob Jones said.

"Over the winter we added lines. We just got very busy," he said.

As Brown toured the factory floor, he reached into a vat of "waste" chips not destined to be sold. He passed chips around to onlookers, then continued sporadic snacking, between discussions with Darryl Jones about the chip-making process, until nearly the end of the tour.

lmartz@gannett.com

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Twitter: @MNJmartz