An unlicensed potato chip factory in Australia has been fined after authorities were tipped off by the facility’s grand opening event.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Western Australia “Spud King” Tony Galati created the house brand chips Spuddies so he could sell them at his Spudshed stores. He established a facility to manufacture the potato chips and acquired all the necessary equipment including an industrial peeler, blancher, fryer and weight checking system to help with portion control and bagging. He just didn’t get any work approvals.
The “Spud King” may have gotten away with it, at least for a little bit longer, if he hadn’t planned and notified regulators about a grand opening event for the factory. But now the Galati Group has been caught for manufacturing without a license and for dumping “non-oily chip-making waste” without a license. The company has been fined $20,000, equal to about $14,000 in the U.S.
This is not the first time the “Spud King” has gotten salty with regulators. Galati, a well-known potato grower in Western Australia, played a key role in the full deregulation of the state’s potato industry. Even after the Potato Marketing Corporation was cooked, Galati was still found in contempt for purposefully planting more potatoes than allowed.
In 2024, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission hit Galati with more than $60,000 in fines for trading with at least four growers without a horticulture produce agreement in place.
No matter how you slice it, the “Spud King” sounds like a potato man who doesn’t play by anyone else’s potato rules.
