UPEI students turn Island spuds into potato soap
A group of student entrepreneurs from the University of Prince Edward Island is upcycling P.E.I. potatoes that were once considered wasteful and turning them into an environmentally friendly hygiene item.
That product is Spuds2Suds potato soap and recently won the group an award at a competition in Halifax.
In an interview with The Guardian on April 11, Maggie McNeil, co-president of Enactus UPEI, says the Spuds2Suds potato soap uses a type of essential oil called Sugar Plum, giving it fragrant notes consisting of vanilla and jasmine.
'We're looking into making different lines of scents and, hopefully, naming the scents after the farmers we get the potatoes from,' she said.
There is an excess amount of P.E.I. potatoes after every harvest and season, McNeil said.
'Some of them, a lot of them don't even get harvested. They just have no purpose in the field,' she said.
In research that the Enactus UPEI group conducted while coming up with the idea of Spuds2Suds potato soap, they discovered that approximately 300 million pounds of P.E.I. potatoes were unused per year as of 2022.
The group also discovered that P.E.I. was responsible for producing approximately 20 per cent of the nation's potatoes – about 2.58 billion pounds per year.
Further, the UPEI entrepreneurs co-ordinated with local Island food banks to see what people need most but the organizations often aren't getting.
'It was hygiene products,' McNeil said. 'Everybody was passionate about getting a solid project that addresses community and local issues,' she added.
As McNeil and her group of entrepreneurs co-ordinate the ongoing project with local farmers, they first collect the potatoes that are yet to be harvested.
'And then we bring them back to our home base and juice the potatoes. We cut them up and juice them to extract liquid starch, which is the active ingredient in the soap.
Once the process is complete, the team melts it down with their soap base, adding hydrating oils and essential oils for its scent.
'After it's all melted down into a liquid state, we put them in moulds. It takes about an hour to solidify. And then we chop them up into individual bars, and it kind of completes the process,' McNeil said.
The Spuds2Suds potato soap is good for exfoliation, McNeil said.
'Potatoes are very high in natural minerals, and they're kind of a natural exfoliant because they have some acidic properties,' she said.
The soap has collagen production properties, which is noteworthy for the customer's skin, McNeil added.
'They're organic. They're grown right from the ground in P.E.I., so it's not like (customers) have to go through any kind of preservatives or anything like that,' she said.
Long before creating the Spuds2Suds project, the Enactus UPEI group wanted to grow the team and develop a project that could last for years after its members graduate, McNeil said.
Last year, the group of UPEI entrepreneurs first launched the potato soap at the winter fair market on campus in December, she said.
'But, it took us around three months to come up with the idea, get everything, get our resources handled, get the team on board with it,' McNeil said.
Balancing the life of an entrepreneur and a student is busy, she added.
'It's very gratifying because I realize that if I can do a full course load and also basically run a business on the side of it, it's like, what else can I do?' McNeil said.
All of the work is definitely empowering, but the relationships the group gains along the way are probably the best part of it all, she added.
In February, Enactus UPEI won top prizes for its project at a regional event in Halifax — a competition among educational institutions across the Atlantic provinces.
The group was awarded first place in its league for the Canadian Tire environmental sustainability challenge and second place in the innovation and impact challenge.
As a result, the group will compete at the 2024–2025 Enactus Canada National Exposition in Calgary, Alta., from May 6–8.
In an interview with The Guardian on April 14, Veseys spokesperson Tara Matheson said the potato soaps sell fast.
'We're really proud to be able to support Island businesses because we really need to support each other, especially in this economy,' she said.
As McNeil and another co-president of Enactus UPEI, Sam Harding, are graduating this year, their ultimate hope is that the project will continue.
'We hope that people stay engaged with Enactus because when we first started, it was just the two of us. We didn't have a project. We didn't have people. So we would hate to see it die off again,' McNeil said. 'There's so many different projects out there that are super inspiring,' she added.
Yutaro Sasaki is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter, a position funded by the federal government. He can be reached at
ysasaki@postmedia.com
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