Ranch Raised with Karina Jones – National Tator Tot Day!

February 2, 2026 Karina Jones Featured, Ranch Raised 0

Your Ag Network
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Ranch Raised with Karina Jones - National Tator Tot Day!
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Karina Jones is a real-life ranch wife in the Nebraska Sandhills and one of the most highly sought-after speakers in the cattle industry nationwide!

Welcome to this special Tator Tot edition of Ranch Raised! I bet you thought I was going to open giving spotlight to the big burley rodent everyone has been talking about today. Well, you see, we’ve had a pretty open and mild winter in these parts of NE, so I’m not sure we are paying much attention to what a groundhog in Pennsylvania thinks.

But, back to the real news of the day, it is National Tator Tot Day! The Tator Tot has a super interesting history, rooted deep in agriculture, no pun intended. Two brothers, Nephi and Golden Grigg, along with their brother-in-law started dabbling in frozen food when they rented a plant on the Oregon and Idaho borders in 1934. They focused on making French fries, but the waste fed to cattle seemed excessive. Was there a way to reduce the excess? Not only did the scrapped and shredded bits form into tasty bites when blanched and fried, but they also fit into their product line, too. They froze well, could be baked, and were delicious! By 1952, they purchased the plant, forming the Oregon Frozen Foods Company that would later become Ore-Ida.

The tater tot was born out of a need to reduce food waste and that is an effort I can get behind!  Our family loves the original tater tot and sweet potato tots and it just so happens I’ve got both in the freezer, to serve alongside some beef today in celebration!

karina@youragnetwork.com or visit facebook.com/ranchraisedwithkarinajones


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About Karina Jones 475 Articles
Karina ranches with her husband, Marty, and 3 daughters near Broken Bow, NE. She grew up in western NE, with roots also in southwest SD. The cattle industry and raising kids is her passion. Watching the cattle industry go the path that it has gone, she could no longer sit quietly at home checking cows, fixing fence, and doing all the everyday tasks wondering when some else was going to make it all better. As she became more active and outspoken on industry issues, she was asked to join the R-CALF USA staff in September 2020 as the Checkoff Petition Campaign manager. That position transcended into her current role as full time Field Director for R-CALF USA. You can hear her almost every Friday on Your Ag Network’s Hot Barn Report that is broadcast on 60 radio stations with coverage in 9 states, where she deep dives into cattle industry issues and highlights R-CALF’s work on industry reforms. Listen to Ranch Raised on a Your Ag Network hometown station or www.youragnetwork.com where she talks about her daily life on the ranch. Cattle producers are her people. She will meet you at the county fair, at the sale barn, or anywhere the dusty trail leads.