2024 Spudman Impact Awards Emerging Leader – Bryan Bender

Bryan Bender

Emerging Leader

The Emerging Leader award recognizes an up-and-coming industry professional poised to reach new career heights.

Bryan Bender, 38, is a fourth- generation grower at Bender Potatoes, which grows 140 acres of round white potatoes in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania on 500 acres of farmland.

Bender Potatoes grow 70 acres of Atlantic and Snowden for out of the field chipping and 70 acres of Norwis, Reba and Waneta for table stock, while 30 acres of Waneta are put into storage to be packed and sold on demand. Bryan oversees sales, shipping and procuring for repacking to provide local customers with year-round supply.

Bender Potatoes sells to a few local grocery stores and restaurants, but most of the table stock goes to food service distributors. Bender is involved in the entire operation of the small family farm, but his focus is growing, buying and selling potatoes.

Bender went to Coastal Carolina University hoping to play basketball and to major in math. After becoming a Christian through a campus ministry called Campus Outreach, he went to work for the organization in 2007.

In 2012, he moved back to the family farm. He serves on the boards of the Pennsylvania Co-operative of Potato Growers and the Pennsylvania State Potato research.