POTATOES NEWS has become an international promotion partner of Global Potato Summit 2026 (GPS 2026), which takes place on December 16–17 at the Mahatma Mandir Convention and Exhibition Centre in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Together with its Indian partner IndianPotato.com, POTATOES NEWS will work to bring exhibitors, delegates and visitors to the summit from Russia, the CIS countries and Africa.
The arrangement follows a territory model proposed in April and accepted by the organisers, New Delhi-based Media Today, in August. Russia and the CIS, including Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, form one territory. Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Ethiopia form the second. Other countries can be added by mutual agreement. The organisers have already shared the first exhibitor creatives for the campaign.
IndianPotato.com worked with the previous edition of the summit in 2025. This year the organisers asked partners to agree marketing plans, target markets and deliverables well before December, so that international participation can be built up in advance rather than in the final weeks.
What does the partnership include? Coverage of the summit in the 22 language editions of POTATOES NEWS and on its three LinkedIn pages, which have more than 27,000 followers combined. Video interviews with GPS 2026 exhibitors, recorded by the IndianPotato.com team for the POTATO 2.0 podcast. And a presentation of the summit at the 13th World Potato Congress in Naivasha, Kenya, on October 26–30, where POTATOES NEWS is accompanying a delegation of potato businesses from Russia and Central Asia.
Viktor Kovalev, publisher of POTATOES NEWS, plans to attend the summit in Gandhinagar in person.
The summit covers the whole value chain, from seed to snack. According to the organisers, the exhibition is structured around industry pavilions. The cold-chain pavilion brings together cold-storage owners, refrigeration and pre-cooling suppliers, reefer logistics, IoT temperature monitoring, renewable energy and cold-chain finance. A special conference session is devoted to technological innovations in potato cold storage in India.
Upstream, exhibitor categories run from tissue culture and seed technologies to precision agriculture, water management, fertigation, crop protection and farm machinery. Downstream, the programme looks at processing in western and central India: potato chips, extruded snacks, frozen products such as French fries and wedges, and traditional Indian snacks. The organisers list Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh as key states.
Cold storage is where much of the value in Indian potatoes is won or lost. In the plains, the crop is harvested within a few weeks, and a large share goes into cold stores for sale over the following months. Storage temperature decides more than weight loss. In cold conditions, part of the starch in the tuber turns into reducing sugars, and chips or fries made from such potatoes darken in the fryer. Processing potatoes are therefore kept warmer than ware potatoes, which raises the need for sprout control and precise ventilation.
For suppliers from Russia and Central Asia, this is a practical opening. Storage ventilation, sorting lines, seed and farm machinery are exactly the categories the summit is built around, and Indian processors, cold-store owners and traders will be in one hall for two days.
Companies from Russia, the CIS and Africa that want to exhibit, attend or record an interview at GPS 2026 can contact POTATOES NEWS at v.kovalev@potatoes.news.
Source: Global Potato Summit 2026 organisers (Media Today); globalpotatosummit.com; IndianPotato.com
Images: Global Potato Summit
Disclosure: POTATOES NEWS is an international promotion partner of Global Potato Summit 2026. This is partner content.
