Oregon provides super taste for Super Bowl Sunday, Jan. 30

There is more to Super Bowl Sunday than just watching football on TV. The annual event is also a chance to enjoy the great tastes of Oregon. When the Seattle Seahawks take on the Denver Broncos in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on Sunday, party-goers will pile their plates and satisfy their palates with a variety of foods and beverages that may have their origin in Oregon. Beer, wine, chips, nuts, cheeses, meat snacks– you name it, chances are a good portion of it comes from Oregon. And with a team from the Pacific Northwest part of the big game, it only makes sense to enjoy the spectacle with local foods. Statistics may not settle who has the edge between Denver’s high-powered offense and Seattle’s stifling defense, but they do show how big Super Bowl Sunday is when it comes to food and beverage consumption. Only Thanksgiving, a holiday that centers on food, beats out Super Bowl Sunday. More than 125 million Americans participate in Super Bowl parties with an average of 17 people per party. Nationally, each Super Bowl viewer will consume about 1,200 calories during the game. About 28 million pounds of potato chips are expected to be consumed, along with more than 49 million cases of beer and enough dip to cover a football field from end zone to end zone more than three feet deep. Whether the football fan or party-goer is a neat nibbler or a hoggish devourer, the beverage of choice, by far, is beer. On Super Bowl Sunday, beer consumption is about 17 times the average daily consumption in the US. In most cases, that great flavor of beer can be traced back to agriculture in the Pacific Northwest. Washington and Oregon rank first and second respectively in US production of hops– the key ingredient in beer– and are responsible for about 90 percent of the nation’s hop production. Whether it is the big name brews consumed nationwide or the crafted beers brewed locally, fans can thank Northwest hop growers for making much of the beloved beverage possible. This past year, Oregon produced more than 8.4 million pounds of hops valued at $33.6 million.