Rack is out of Belgian potato processing

StatBel, the Belgian statistical office, published figures this week on the potato processing industry in the country. They show that a total of 3,99 million tonnes of potato products left the factory gates during 2024. While this is a new record, growth compared to 2023 is still a meagre 1,2%. The sector has therefore reached saturation point.

70% growth
The miracle of Belgium, that is what the potato industry in the country was also called. In seven years, the volume of fries, flakes, chips and more produced rose from 2,37 to 3,99 million tonnes. A growth of almost 70%. This trend is of course also reflected in the processing of the raw material: potatoes. This rose from just under 4 million tonnes in 2015 to over 6 million tonnes in 2023. Belgapom has not (yet) published any figures on the processed volume of last year. Given the production figures, this is very likely to be around the 6,22 million tonnes that was achieved in 2023.

By far the most potatoes were turned into fries. This concerns 3,49 million tons of frozen and fresh fries. That is 40.000 tons more than in 2023. The share of potato flakes and flour decreased, from 85.000 to 66.000 tons. The volume of chips and chilled potato products increased by 7%, from 404.000 to 432.000 tons.

More turnover
The total value of potato products is €4.76 billion, of which fries take up the largest share with €4 billion. Divided by the volume, you get an average price of €1.156 per ton of fries. This makes the value higher than in 2023, when the total turnover was €4,69 billion.

Especially in the first half of last year, French fry producers were able to profit from a strong demand on the world market, after which things started to slow down from around July. Export figures for the first two months show that the export of the EU-4 slowed down considerably. The production figures for 2025 could turn out very differently.