Despite the considerably smaller harvest, the French fries industry manages to break records. In the month of October, most potatoes were ever processed in 1 month.
370.500 tons of potatoes were processed in October. This amount has never been processed in 1 month before (and certainly not in the month of October). The processors keep up the pace. In the month september a record amount of potatoes was also processed.
Contrast with yields
Last year, 338.400 tons of potatoes were processed in October, which is clearly less than this year. Remarkable, because the yields were much higher then. The processing figures therefore also mock the yield figures.
Of the total of 370.500 tons, 38,6% comes from imports, compared to 39,1% last year. Almost 170.000 tons were processed into pre-baked product and over 31.000 tons were processed into pre-baked product.
Lots of pre-baked product
This means that relatively much has been processed into pre-baked product. Last October, with considerably less product, more was processed into other products. In the period from November 2017 to October 2018, 4.051.200 tons were processed, only 700 tons less than last year.