When I was growing up, a lime-green plastic container was a constant presence in the refrigerator. It held a thick, sour cream-based, chive-and-onion-flavored condiment called Top the Tater.
In my family, we used it exactly as instructed: dolloped on top of baked potatoes, served alongside venison steak. I felt like a rebel when my high school boyfriend and I downed an entire tub in one sitting with (gasp) potato chips.
It wasn’t until I moved in with my now-husband, a Colorado transplant by way of Maine, that I realized that Top the Tater isn’t a staple in refrigerators across America It’s a Midwestern thing.
“The brand is charmingly oddball and quintessentially Midwestern,” says Corey Christofel, brand manager for St. Paul-based Kemps LLC, the dairy farmer-owned cooperative behind Top the Tater. “It’s just kinda fun.”
It wasn’t until I moved in with my now-husband, a Colorado transplant by way of Maine, that I realized that Top the Tater isn’t a staple in refrigerators across America It’s a Midwestern thing.
The origins of Top the Tater are murky. According to Christofel, the first published mention of Top the Tater dates to April 1962. The packaging has been more or less the same since then, from the distinctive lime-green hue to the retro font. The original manufacturer, Mid-America Farms—which was acquired by Kemps decades ago—is even still listed on the front of the package.
“It’s been around for a very long time,” Christofel says. “We’re still using the original formula for chive onion, to my knowledge.”
Although the recipe and packaging hasn’t changed, Top the Tater has added additional flavors in recent years, including ranch, nacho cheese, taco fiesta, and zesty buffalo. Unlike the classic chive-and-onion, the new flavors are sold in wider and shorter “dippable” packages. According to Christofel, consumers started using Top the Tater more as a dip and less as a baked potato garnish about ten to fifteen years ago. (I was apparently at the vanguard.)
Top the Tater can also be an ingredient: the brand’s website features recipes for very Midwestern dishes like Top the Tater Cheesy Potatoes and Top the Tater Tater Tot Hot Dish. At the brand’s Minnesota State Fair booth in 2019, people got even more creative, using samples of the product as a dip for deep-fried pickles and a topping for chocolate chip cookies.
This past December, Kemps partnered with a fulfillment center to ship insulated packages of Top the Tater nationwide for the holidays. “2020 was a tough year,” says Christofel. “We wanted to add joy to the world, and what better way than to make Top the Tater accessible in all fifty states?”
In addition to tubs of Top the Tater, the gift sets included branded swag like Christmas ornaments, scarves, and oven mitts. While the dip is no longer available by mail, there’s still a selection of merchandise available for purchase online, from t-shirts to embroidered baby bibs.
Currently, Top the Tater is stocked in dairy cases at grocery stores in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the eastern portions of the Dakotas. The brand recently entered the Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago markets, and Christofel envisions a future in which Top the Tater is “the Midwest’s most craveable dip.”
For those of us who grew up with it, Top the Tater already holds an enduring place in our hearts. When I mentioned to my sister that I was writing this article, she shared a horror story from her college years in Michigan.
“You know, they don’t have Top the Tater there. What the heck was I supposed to put on my baked potato?”
