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/ 27 May 2008

Potato king JR Simplot, US fry innovator, dies

JR Simplot, the billionaire founder of the Boise, Idaho-based agriculture business that bears his name and who helped make French fries a staple of the American diet and waistline, died on May 25 at the age of 99. After pioneering the first commercial frozen French fry in the late 1940s, Simplot eventually became a major supplier of Idaho potatoes to McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s.