By Joe Kertzman, Managing Editor, Badger Common’Tater
“This isn’t about me. It’s about the hundred-year-old farm that’s still going,” Bob Guenthner says regarding his family’s multi-generational certified seed potato operation, Guenthner Potato Company Inc., of Antigo, Wisconsin, which became a “Century Farm” in 2026.
Guenthner Potato Company Inc. (GPCI) has not always been a certified seed potato farm. In 1926, the core business was dairy, and Bob’s grandfather, Joseph Sebastian Guenthner, owned a milk bottling plant and delivered his bottled milk.
“We still have ledgers listing customers and delivery addresses,” Bob says. “From time to time, someone will still bring us a ‘Guenthner Dairy’ bottle. Grandpa also grew potatoes.”
A major turning point came when the family built a potato grading shed. “Grandpa could sell more potatoes than he could grow, so he began buying from other growers,” Bob explains. “According to his ledger books, it appears he purchased potatoes from nearly every grower in Langlade County.”
“He also had two warehouses in Antigo, both located on the Chicago & North Western (CNW) Railway line,” he adds. “We were still loading potatoes on railcars in the 1960s. We had one Baker machine, and it could take four hours to bag a railcar load of 10-pound bags.”
