A video shows that red potato skins are dyed that colour so they can be sold for more money.
This is untrue, and the video alleging it is a joke. Red potatoes get their colour from naturally occurring pigments called anthocyanins.
Posts on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and Instagram have shared a video claiming that potatoes’ skins are dyed red so that they “sell for more money”.
But potato varieties with red skin don’t get their colour from being dyed, sprayed or painted.
False claims such as these can cause unnecessary alarm and uncertainty about what is safe to eat, and lead to confusion about genuine health guidance around food.
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The original video circulating on social media was a joke from a TikTok account which posts about the workings of a potato farm in British Columbia in Canada.
However, the post has been shared by users in recent days taking the comedic claim at face value.
The video shows a large number of red and brownish potatoes being funnelled onto a conveyor belt while being hosed with a liquid, and then being further coated in liquid while on the belt.
Audio dubbed over the clip says: “Today we are painting our potatoes red. That is right, this is a liquid that looks like water but it is actually a food safe dye. We also add this dye to the water here which gets the rest of the potatoes coated in this beautiful red colour—look at it. We do this because red potatoes sell for more money.”
In the comments beneath the original video, which was posted in April 2023 and has over 19 million views, the creator ‘heppellspotato’ says: “Fam this is a joke, please still buy red potatoes” [sic]. The caption of the video also includes the hashtag “#joke”.
The footage actually shows harvested red potatoes being rinsed with water to remove mud and dirt before being packed and distributed.
Some varieties of potatoes naturally have red skins as a result of anthocyanins—pigments found in their tubers and in the rest of the potato—which change their colour.
These pigments are responsible for the colours red, purple and blue in fruits and vegetables, such as berries, currants, grapes and tropical fruits.
A herbicide called 2,4-D is widely used as a weed control for a variety of products and is licensed in the US to enhance the already present skin colour of red-skinned potatoes, rather than ‘dyeing’ it as such.
We’ve previously fact checked widely shared misleading claims about fruit and vegetables, including a fake video of a genetically modified tomato swimming in salt water, and a false claim that all McDonald’s french fries come from Bill Gates and a “genetically modified potato farm”.
Image courtesy of Robert Couse-Baker
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as satire because the video claiming that potatoes are being dyed red is a satirical post, and red potatoes get their colour from naturally occurring pigments.
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