Prussian king Frederick the Great is known for his art of rebranding and how he convinced his people to cultivate and deploy potatoes in his country.
He passed a circular
order to ensure the cultivation and deployment of potatoes in his country.
Potatoes were new to Prussia. He wanted to grow potatoes because they have a
high nutrition value. He also realized that potatoes have the potential to feed
the nation and reduce the price of bread.
But the peasants had
other ideas. Peasants thought potatoes are suspicious subterranean vegetables.
They believed potatoes are good to eat during the famine but not regularly.
They also thought that there is no point in cultivating a tasteless vegetable.
Sensing a backlash,
Frederick the Great started a campaign and coined a catchy phrase ‘potatoes
instead of truffles'. He also used his army to start a propaganda campaign to
grow potatoes. But peasants were adamant. They came with a reply – 'what the
peasant doesn’t know, he will not eat'. One town gave a stern response to the
king’s order by saying – ‘The things [potatoes] have neither smell nor taste,
not even the dogs will eat them, so what use are they to us?’
Therefore Fredrick the
Great came up with his cunning plan. He instructed to cultivate potato around
the area of Berlin and ordered the guards to protect the fields from any
thefts. People became suspicious that potatoes must be rather a precious
vegetable and guarded so strictly. This way the king made his people believe
that the potatoes are royal products. But in reality, the king told his guards
not to protect the fields so strictly and to look away or to pretend to sleep.
Sensing a royalty in potatoes, people started to steal potatoes from the fields
when soldiers were unobservant. The king had this idea in his mind.
In this way, he popularized potatoes among his people. And the peasants of Prussia started cultivating potatoes on their land.
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