About a decade ago, Rodney McCrum saw things had to change. A fourth-generation Mars Hill potato grower, he had watched the rise of the Idaho potato and a build-up of processing plants out West throttle the traditional markets in Maine. Farms were going under. A thousand people a year were leaving Aroostook County. There was little to entice youth with hard-earned college degrees to return home.

“We looked at what was happening in northern Maine and our kids being exported out of here,” McCrum said. “Francis [Fitzpatrick] and I felt our fathers had given us an opportunity to come into the business and work on the farm, and we said it’s time we stepped up to the plate and did the same thing.”

So McCrum and Fitzpatrick, another fourth-generation grower and potato trucker, had a good look around. They traveled to Europe and studied food service trends. They came home and racked their brains: How to increase the value of a potato in an iPod and Internet world?

Their solution was Naturally Potatoes, the company they founded in 1997, of which McCrum is now president and Fitzpatrick is vice president of operations. The heart of the business was a meticulously engineered maze of computers and stainless steel that processes russets and red Norlands into products too simple to seem groundbreaking, but too sensible to argue with.

Here’s the pitch: fresh-cooked potatoes – mashed, scalloped, diced, packaged and refrigerated, ready to heat and serve. No more lugging home that musty little bag. No need to wash, peel, slice and cook potatoes.

The concept builds on the ready-to-serve fresh vegetable market, which originated in Europe and has stormed U.S. supermarket shelves in the past decade. In 2003, sales of bright-bagged “salad kits” alone rose 16 percent in the United States to $3.2 billion.

But ready-made potatoes were slow to catch on. Deals fell through, a table stock packaging effort lost money, and creditors were pounding at the door in 1998 when the Portland-based Libra Foundation stepped in with funding to hold things together.

Through Libra, the company connected with William Haggett, the former chief executive officer of Bath Iron Works who now acts as Naturally Potatoes’ chairman and chief executive. Through that alliance, the company made two critical strategy changes that have more than quadrupled sales since 2001. McCrum says revenue could clear $15 million this year.

The change? Mashed potatoes, for starters.

“In the year 2000 we were shipping none,” McCrum said, standing beside a stainless steel vat purring with 200 gallons of garlic mash. “Today mashed potatoes are 45 percent of our business-and we’re shipping 32 million pounds of product this year.”

An almost completed $1 million expansion will increase Naturally Potatoes’ mashed capacity from 3,000 to 10,000 pounds an hour. McCrum says sales growth could lead to another $2.5 million to $3 million expansion this year, and the company business plan calls for $75 million in sales by 2008.

The team also opted for a major shift in marketing. Early on, Naturally Potatoes had pushed hard and spent tides of precious capital in an attempt to establish itself in grocery chains. Then a single hard-won contract redirected the strategic plan.

Columbus, Ohio-based Bob Evans Farms, which operates 550 restaurants throughout the Midwest, agreed to buy refrigerated home fries from Naturally Potatoes four years ago. This year the restaurants will buy 10 million pounds of Naturally Potatoes goods, increasing by double digits every year, according to Bob Evans’ head of purchasing and technical services, Merl Beery.

Beery said it took McCrum two years to sell the company on the idea, and to match the chain’s signature recipe.

“Our fresh potato was sacred to us, because fresh home fries have always been one of the cornerstones of our breakfast business,” Beery said. “For years, and through working with a lot of people, we could never figure out how to get a processed fresh home fry that replicated what we had.”

After endless discussions about potato varieties, chemistry, textures, solids and sugars, McCrum’s staff found the magic mix. Bob Evans Farms tried the home fries, first in one restaurant, then several, then in all of its restaurants.

Naturally Potatoes turned much of its marketing effort to restaurants and distributors, and now delivers specially prepared recipes nationwide to chains including Ruby Tuesday, Numero Uno Italian Restaurant and 99 Restaurants.

“Today, we are probably 95 percent food service and national restaurant chains and 5 percent retail,” McCrum said. “In the early years we were 50-50.”

The demand bodes well not only for Naturally Potatoes, but for growers in the region. Farmers found themselves left with more than 180 million pounds of last year’s crop unsold. Barry Campbell is a Littleton grower who tills 380 acres. A regular supplier to frozen-food makers McCain’s Foods and Frito-Lay, Campbell said it has become harder and harder to find buyers, and 25 percent of his crop remains unsold this year. Sales to Naturally Potatoes accounted for 75 acres of his crop.

“I’ve sold more and more to them every year,” Campbell said.

The most important accomplishment, in McCrum’s eyes, are the jobs his company has created. Naturally Potatoes employs 77 people, and few of the jobs in such an automated plant are traditional factory-type positions, with 35 percent of the employees holding college degrees. Among those are a staff research chef, and McCrum’s 22-year-old daughter, Haley, who earned a degree in business administration from Husson College last year and joined the company’s marketing team this spring.

“Ours was never a facility designed to pay minimum wage,” McCrum said. “There are not very many people here who earn less than $25,000 [a year], and most of our people earn way more than that.”

Now McCrum and Fitzpatrick are intent on making those 77 jobs secure. Fitzpatrick’s sons continue to run his family’s farm and McCrum’s brother has taken over operation of their 600 acres. McCrum’s advice to those considering a similar leap? Don’t doubt that it really does take five years to get a business off the ground, and don’t imagine you’ll go it alone.

“It was the guidance of some good people, keeping an open mind at all times and adjusting to the market,” he said. “But once you start winning victories, it starts feeding on itself.”