Chip factories are springing up like mushrooms in Northern France. In the coming years, hundreds of thousands of tons of extra French fries potatoes will be needed to feed all existing and new lines. The Belgian Ecofrost started the construction of a new factory at the beginning of June. McCain is also expanding significantly.
Belgium may still be called the 'miracle of the European potato sector', but there is a good chance that France will soon dethrone it. The enormous northern French arable area still has plenty of opportunities for potato cultivation and factories are eagerly taking advantage of this. This partly concerns Belgian companies, such as Clarebout and Ecofrost, that invest heavily in France.
Doubling of processing
The ambitions of the French potato sector are not bad. If it were up to GIPT - the representative of the interests of the French processors - there would be one in seven years doubling of French fries production. This means that potato processing must double from the current 1,5 million tons to 3 million tons. The increase in production is also partly due to shifting volumes. A third of all French fries potatoes are now processed in other countries, mainly Belgium.
The Belgian family business Ecofrost from Péruwelz, which is located a stone's throw from the French border near Valenciennes, officially laid the first stone at the end of May, heralding the construction of their new chip factory in Péronne. The new facility - where up to 400.000 potatoes will soon be processed annually - is more than an hour's drive from the main location in Belgium. At the beginning of this year, the Hoflack and Vervaeke families purchased the 13-hectare site where the Flodor chip factory was previously located. To this end, it works together with potato grower Matthieu Lenglet.
There will soon be buildings on 4,5 hectares that will house two processing lines. Together they produce 200.000 tons of end product per year, the company reports. The frozen fries are stored in a 1,5 hectare cold store, 35 meters high, where frozen vegetables are also stored. For the northern French region there is the attractive prospect of 450 new jobs.
McCain is also investing
Just 70 kilometers to the north, competitor McCain is also investing heavily. The Canadian company has three factories in France, two of which are in the north. Over the next five years, it will invest €350 million in increasing production capacity, with which it hopes to process a quarter more potatoes. For the factory in Harnes, near the city of Lens, this means that 200.000 to 250.000 tons more fries potatoes are needed, director Maxime Debrye told local media.
Last fall, chip giant Clarebout opened the doors of their new factory in Dunkirk. Agristo has purchased an old sugar factory in Escaudoeuvres where 300.000 tons of potatoes will be processed in three years. The capacity of existing locations is also being quietly expanded with a fourth processing line at the Wielsbeke factory. All these factories operate in the same region, which puts even greater pressure on potato cultivation.
| Company | Place | Planned max. production capacity per year |
| Clarebout | Dunkirk | 500.000 ton |
| Ecofrost | Peronne | 400.000 ton |
| Agristo | Escaudoeuvres | 300.000 ton |
| McCain | Harness | 250.000 ton |
| Total | 1,45 million tons |
Pressure on potato cultivation
Traditionally, northern French arable farming focuses largely on grains, sugar beets and crops such as flax. It is now indispensable to do without the chipped potato. Arable farmers fear that they will face problems with their crop rotation if potato cultivation continues to expand. They also see a steady decline in yields, mainly due to increasingly difficult growing seasons. New varieties are required to meet challenges, but practice cannot meet them.