Potato Parcel

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About

Potato Parcel is a web site that allows users to mail a potato to another person, sans box or wrapping, with a personalized message engraved into the potato's skin.

History

Precursors

The idea of mailing a potato has circulated around the web for some time. Forum posts dating back to 2008 indicate that people have celebrated, ironically or not, a "National Mail a Potato Day" on November 1st.^[1] On March 14th, 2010, a Yahoo! Answers question was created asking "How many stamps should I use to mail a potato?", which received three replies.^[2] On August 5th, 2013, the Reddit user magoo_ posted a photo (below) of a potato covered in stamps in the /r/pics subreddit. The post, which was titled "my brother mailed me a potato. . .again," received 2,694 points (95% upvoted). ^[3]

The first web service set up to send potatoes through the United States Postal Service was Mail a Spud, launched in 2014.^[4]

Potato Parcel

Alex Craig of Dallas, Texas founded Potato Parcel in May of 2015.^[5] According to Mashable,^[6] the web site sold over 3,000 potatoes in the first three months, grossing over $30,000. In August 2015, Potato Parcel expanded into the United Kingdom, allowing users to ship potatoes there as well. Craig sends the potatoes anonymously, packaged in a beige envelope. The user's message is written on them using a pen. In addition to a written message, users may also send a potato with an image pasted to it, or a potato in a burlap sack (these options cost extra).

Potato Parcel was covered in the national media, including on USA Today,^[7] Playboy,^[8] and CNBC.^[9] One Cosmopolitan author sent herself a potato to test the service, and deemed the experience "sad."^[10] In addition, Craig appeared on the Steve Harvey Show to promote his service.

Other Potato-by-Mail Sites

After the success of Potato Parcel, several other web sites where users could send potatoes by mail were founded, including Potato.Gift, Mystery Potato, Brick or Potato (which gives users the choice of the two), Potato in the Post, Text a Potato (which allows users to send the potato by text message), Anonymous Potato, and Coolballz.net.