FRENCH POTATO ASSOCIATION CONSIDERS BUILDING A POTATO PROCESSING FACILITY

Global demand for products from processed potatoes, particularly frozen fries, leads to the necessity of building a plant in France, said Arnaud Delacour, president of Union Nationale des Producteurs de Pommes de Terre – UNPT (French Association of Potato Producers), at their annual congress, January 24.

Belgium, a leading country in processing potatoes, no longer has enough hectares to produce potatoes with the necessary crop rotations, he added, according to http://www.paysan-breton.fr/. 

For reasons of logistical costs, the processors need to be located near the production basins. UNPT has calculated that a plant would earn EUR800k per year to be established in France rather than in Belgium because of its proximity to production yields.

At the annual congress, UNPT showed that trade is assured to more than 80% by the five major producing countries grouped in the NEPG (Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium and the United Kingdom) and France is directly interested in production.

These five countries produced in 2016 24.5 million tons of potatoes, but the yield registered a decrease of 3% compared with 2015.

The total production of potatoes is at the lowest average in the last five years.