Sweet Potato
Our customers use sweet potatoes because of their natural sweetness, vibrant color, and strong nutritional profile, making them highly versatile in both sweet and savory products. Sweet potatoes are commonly processed into purees, flours, fries, and snack ingredients, which are used in baked goods, baby foods, chips, and prepared meals. Their natural sugars help enhance flavor while reducing the need for added sweeteners, and their soft texture makes them effective for improving moisture and consistency. Sweet potatoes are also rich in fiber, vitamins—especially vitamin A—and antioxidants, supporting health-focused marketing claims. Additionally, their bright orange color enhances visual appeal, and their availability in shelf-stable and frozen forms makes them practical for large-scale manufacturing and consistent product formulation.
Sweet Potato can be supplied as organic upon request
Botanical: Ipomoea Batatas
The Underground Treasure
Sweet potatoes are root vegetables that grow underground and belong to the species Ipomoea batatas, they are commonly processed into sweet potato juice concentrate and sweet potato puree. They are native to Central and South America and have been cultivated for thousands of years. Sweet potatoes have a thin skin that can range in color from brown to reddish-purple, and their flesh may be orange, white, or purple depending on the variety. They grow on trailing vines and thrive in warm climates with well-drained soil. The roots develop beneath the soil as the plant matures and are typically harvested several months after planting. Sweet potatoes are distinct from regular potatoes and are not closely related botanically.
The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a dicotyledonous, tuberous root crop belonging to the morning glory (Convolvulaceae) family, distinct from both the nightshade potato (Solanum tuberosum) and the true botanical yam (Dioscorea). Celebrated across the commercial food manufacturing, infant nutrition, bakery, and pet health industries, the sweet potato is prized for its high culinary versatility, mild glycemic profile, dense concentration of beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A), potassium, dietary fiber, and natural sweetness driven by the thermal conversion of complex starches into maltose.
In commercial processing, cultivar selection and post-harvest curing dictate starch-to-sugar ratios, color intensity, and viscosity:
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Covington & Beauregard (Processing Benchmarks): The premier commercial processing cultivars of North America. Developed by North Carolina State University and Louisiana State University respectively, Covington and Beauregard feature smooth rose-to-copper skin, deep uniform orange flesh, and high yields. They yield exceptionally smooth purees with minimal stringy fibers and firm dices that withstand IQF blast-freezing.
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Specialty Cultivars (Stokes Purple & Murasaki): Purple-fleshed cultivars (Stokes Purple) offer dense concentrations of water-soluble anthocyanins (cyanidin and peonidin glycosides), providing an intense violet hue and earthy sweetness for specialty natural colorants and chips. White-fleshed cultivars (Murasaki / Japanese Sweet Potato) feature nutty sweetness and high starch solids for savory puree bases.
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Sweet Potato Puree: Cured roots are washed in high-pressure soak tanks, steam-peeled, inspected, and cooked in continuous steam cookers to fully gelatinize starches and activate native amylase enzymes. The cooked flesh is passed through multi-stage mechanical finishers (0.020″ to 0.033″ screens) and vacuum-deaerated, yielding an ultra-smooth, velvety puree with consistent Bostwick viscosity.
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Clarified Sweet Potato Juice Concentrate (65° Brix): Cooked root mash undergoes enzymatic de-starching (amyloglucosidase treatment), de-pectinization, and multi-stage ultra-filtration to remove all insolubles, cloud, and starches. The clear amber liquid is concentrated under low-temperature vacuum into a shelf-stable syrup, serving as a 100% vegetable-derived natural sweetener and soluble carbohydrate source.
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IQF Sweet Potato (Dices & Cuts): Fresh roots are peeled, precision-diced (1/4″, 3/8″, 1/2″), continuous steam-blanched to permanently deactivate polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and peroxidase enzymes, and passed through fluidized-bed cryogenic freezers. This locks in firm cellular structure and radiant orange color without turning mushy upon reconstitution.
Brothers International partners with origin processors equipped with dedicated root-washing flumes, continuous-cooking lines, and ultra-filtration systems, preserving natural beta-carotene and delivering consistent flow characteristics.
Global Sourcing Through the Brothers International Network:
Sweet potatoes require warm, temperate to subtropical climates with frost-free growing seasons of 110 to 140 days, abundant sunlight, and loose, well-drained sandy loam soils that allow uniform taproot expansion. Because root crops directly absorb minerals and potential contaminants from agricultural soils, selecting audited growing regions with pristine soil chemistry is essential. Brothers International connects North American procurement teams to premier agricultural basins across the globe. We source high-grade sweet potato ingredients from leading agricultural hubs:
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Southern Europe (Spain & Portugal): Spain (Andalusia and Valencia) represents Europe’s leading sweet potato processing corridor, supplying high-solids organic purees, clarified concentrates, and IQF cuts that meet strict European Union and baby food regulatory standards.
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Central & South America (Costa Rica, Peru & Brazil): Strategic sourcing regions providing year-round continuous harvest operations and counter-seasonal agricultural capacity.
By coordinating supply across North Carolina, Louisiana, California, Spain, and South America, Brothers International insulates your manufacturing facility against localized drought events, excessive hurricane rains at harvest, and regional transport shortages.
Harvest Cycles & Continuous Supply Management:
In the Northern Hemisphere (USA and Europe), sweet potatoes are harvested from late August through November. Once cured, sweet potatoes are transferred to computerized, temperature- and humidity-controlled storage facilities (13°C to 15°C / 55°F to 60°F at 85% RH), where roots remain physiologically dormant and metabolically stable for up to 12 months. This allows processing facilities in North Carolina and California to operate continuous peeling, pureeing, concentrating, and blast-freezing operations 52 weeks a year.
Managing continuous rolling production and coordinating cold-chain logistics is a core capability of Brothers International. Our operations and logistics teams oversee multi-quarter inventory allocations, deep-frozen ocean transport (-18°C), ambient/chilled distribution, USDA/FDA import clearances, C-TPAT supply chain security, and strategic warehousing across North America. Whether your facility requires frozen 5-gallon pails of single-strength puree for R&D trials, 55-gallon drums of 65° Brix clarified juice concentrate for clean-label sweetening, or bulk master cartons of 3/8″ IQF diced sweet potatoes for frozen meal kits, our network guarantees ready inventory year-round.
Rigorous Quality Control, Traceability & Compliance:
Because sweet potatoes grow subterraneanly and are a core ingredient in infant nutrition, processing demands strict technical oversight (specifically regarding heavy metal screening: lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury), agricultural pesticide residue testing, spore-forming thermophilic bacteria validation, starch conversion verification, and Bostwick viscosity consistency. Every supplier within the Brothers International network undergoes a comprehensive auditing process to guarantee complete supply chain traceability, sustainable farming practices, fair labor standards, and strict compliance with USDA, FDA, and international food safety standards.
Through our network, we deliver sweet potato ingredients backed by complete technical documentation and top-tier industry certifications, including GFSI benchmarks (BRC, SQF, FSSC 22000), USDA Organic (NOP), Kosher, Non-GMO Project Verified, and Halal standards. Our quality assurance protocols include Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) heavy metal validation, HPLC carbohydrate/sugar profiling, Bostwick viscosity testing, particle fineness analysis, and beta-carotene retention testing.
The Brothers International
Quality Promise
Brothers International and its 4 divisions, Brothers Ingredients, Dennick Fruit Source, Hosh International and Food Partners, are trusted global importers of premium ingredients to major food and beverage manufacturers in North America. We deliver consistent quality and supply across every format the industry demands. Our Sweet Potato is sourced from the earth’s prime growing regions where farming expertise, climate and soil composition come together to produce Sweet Potato of exceptional caliber. All of our suppliers undergo a rigorous vetting process to ensure we work with only the highest-quality processors and can fully guarantee traceability, sustainability, and compliance with all international regulations.
Each of our divisions has a specialized operations team to manage shipments and coordinate with customers and suppliers. They work closely with our in-house customs team to ensure efficient clearance, and collaborate with the USDA and FDA to maintain full regulatory compliance. This ensures your ingredients move seamlessly through every stage of import, arriving on time and ready for production with complete confidence. With decades of sourcing expertise and a strong commitment to customer success, you can count on Brothers International to deliver the premium ingredients your products require.
Industry Glossary
A Reference Guide for Fruit Ingredient Terminology
Check out our glossary for a consolidated reference of commonly used terminology across the global fruit ingredient industry. It provides straightforward definitions and context for the language and concepts referenced throughout the industry.
