You can always send flowers, but here's something more a-peeling.
A U.K. startup has established a mail-order business that allows you to send potatoes with loving messages scrawled on them. Potato in the Post owner Adrian Nantchev claims he's earned about £12,000 ($18,031.74) in the past three months from the endeavor.
"Don't be bland. Don't be forgettable. Send a Potato in the Post instead," he suggests in a YouTube video advertising his business.
Nantchev said he came up with the idea for the mail order potato business after reading about a similar U.S. business, the Mirror reports.
“When I came across a similar potato posting business in America - I thought, why not try to make a go of it in the U.K.," he told the publication. “People must be bored of receiving cards in the post all the time - a potato is a lot more exciting."
A former computer games tester, he claims to have quit his job after the potato business's success.
NPR's Morning Edition mentioned the company on its radio program in November, noting that the potatoes are trending on social media because people who get potatoes in the mail don't forget the unique gift.
"It's more interactive than a card. Cards are boring," Nantchev said in an interview with BBC Radio 1 last week.
His potatoes of choice are Maris Peers, which are small, whitish potatoes that the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board's Potato Variety Database says have "[g]ood resistance to scab, gangrene, damage, bruising and skin spot."
Nantchev claims he's earned £12,000 ($18,031.74) in three months selling the potatoes which, even if he were only selling the highest end option, amounts to approximately 2003 potatoes in that timeframe. That's about 668 potatoes a month.
HuffPost reached out to Nantchev and his representation separately to request verification of the amount, but received no response.
Right now, Potato in the Post only allows customers to mail potatoes within the U.K. We wanted to see how well the process worked, so we sent a potato to one of our HuffPost team members across the pond.
For the mere sum of £5.99 ($9.08), we went online and crafted a message 40 characters long for our buddy. We splurged on the higher-end option, as a potatoes with shorter message lengths are cheaper. The cheapest option, a 25-character message, runs £4.49 ($6.74).
Our team member was happy with his surprise.
As Nantchev notes, Potato in the Post isn't the first company to do something like this.
Potato Parcel is an American postal potato business that also writes messages on potatoes and sends them through the mail. That company also offers holiday-themed potato options and potatoes with images affixed to them.
Mail a Spud, also in the U.S., lets users mail potatoes for $9.99, but those spuds don't come adorned with customized messages. That company simply affixes stamps to a potato, writes an address on and drops it in the mail.
A few other Potato in the Post greetings have sprouted up on social media recently, reminding us that if nothing else, people are willing to spend money on almost anything.
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