No-nonsense, no-frills news stories from around the world
TOMRA revealed plans to accelerate the path to a sustainable future and double its revenues in five years at its capital markets day on 23 June in Mülheim-Kärlich, Germany. The company’s strategy is built on accelerating growth in its three core divisions, and using the current business platform to develop adjacent business opportunities. TOMRA is uniquely positioned along global megatrends, with leading market positions, best- in-class technologies, and purpose driven employees.
Vanmark, an industrial potato and produce processing equipment manufacturer, announced earlier today that its location in Bengaluru, India, has shipped its first three peeler machines to a large customer based in China. The three peeler/scrubber/washer 2020 models, Vanmark’s best-selling models in the U.S., were fully built at the Indian facility. The machines include a new bent sheet metal frame which is more hygienic with an open frame design.
Calbee Inc., Japan’s answer to Frito-Lay with an enormous product line-up ranging from pizza-flavored potato chips to low-carb granola, is raising prices again as companies struggle to absorb costs that are climbing at the fastest clip in years. As Lily Nonomiya reports for Bloomberg News, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement Wednesday it will raise the prices of snacks and cereals in Japan by 5% to 20% from September.
Lamb Weston Holdings issued its third annual Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) report today, reporting progress against 2030 ESG goals announced in its last report. “Our teams are committed to working together to make progress against our ambitious 2030 goals,” said Tom Werner, CEO, Lamb Weston. “We’re focused on our long-term future, which means making meaningful changes to reduce our impact on the environment.”
The most recent potato variety to join the list of approved McDonald’s potato varieties is the Dakota Russet, developed at North Dakota State University by Asunta Thompson, associate professor of plant science and potato breeder. “This is a dream come true,” Thompson said. “Having our russet accepted by McDonald’s for their french fries is the gold standard we all strive for…
Eamonn Cullen, Market Manager Peeling at TOMRA Food, analyzes in this article the market situation and some of the challenges faced by potato processors, such as reducing food waste and energy use in the processing line, and explains how TOMRA Food addresses these issues.
McCain Foods has launched the second edition of the India Sustainability Report 2021 – titled ‘Together-Towards Planet-Friendly Food’ earlier this week, highlighting the steps taken by the company towards delivering planet-friendly food, encouraging the use of sustainable practices and helping communities thrive with a sustainable livelihood.
A $5.6 million project to eliminate CO2 emissions and reduce demand for heating fuel at McCain’s Timaru factory in New Zealand will soon use woodchips to make potato chips. As Yashas Srinivasa reports for Stuff.co.nz, the company is converting its boiler from coal to domestically sourced woodchips, which will help McCain reduce its carbon emissions by approximately 30,000 tonnes per year.
PepsiCo India today announced expansion plans for its largest greenfield foods manufacturing plant that produces the popular LAY’S potato chips in Kosi Kalan, Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. As part of its expansion plan, PepsiCo India will increase the capacity of the state-of-the-art foods plant, by setting-up a new manufacturing line which will produce one of world’s leading nacho chip brand Doritos.
Barry Enderwick has made a name for himself on TikTok by eating the most exotic, rare potato chips the globe has to offer. Here, he reveals which flavors left the worst taste in his mouth, as Brian VanHooker reports for Mel magazine.
Revolutionising the potato production supply chain, root crop R&D agri-tech firm B-hive Innovations has developed Root Extracts Ltd. The venture will extract plant-based protein from outgrade potatoes and peeling waste, as part of a first-of-its-kind sustainable initiative, which will improve profits and reduce tuber waste before it even hits the shelves.
Humble Snacks, Inc., based in Canada’s Ontario province, is disrupting the snack industry with the Humble Potato Chips, Canada’s first plastic-free packaged, organic potato chips. Founded by Jeff and Alicia Lahey, the chips – made from locally sourced, organic potatoes – are traditionally cooked with the skins and lightly dusted with seasoning, as Nithya Caleb reports for Food in Canada magazine.
Kanaan, Croatia’s largest snack producer, and Elea recently ran a test project with an Elea PEF Advantage system to evaluate the PEF impact on product yield and quality. The test proved to be highly successful. Kanaan then went ahead and installed a state-of-the-art Elea PEF Advantage B1 system.
Entrepreneur Hamid Sanayie on Canada’s Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.) is continuing to make his mark on the french fry world with two new one-of-a-kind potato cutting machines. He has built the world’s first automatic wedge cutting machine for use by restauranteurs, and a second revolutionary machine to create crinkle-cut fries.
Super-Pufft, one of North America’s largest manufacturers and co-packers of salty snacks for retailers and national brands, has established a new state-of-the-art potato chip processing facility in Alberta. The new $50-million facility will support Alberta potato producers and create more than 100 jobs for the Airdrie area. It will use about 78,000 tonnes of Alberta potatoes each year.
The company ‘Arch Chips’ in the Shikohabad area is not a typical business firm. It has 10 directors and 650 shareholders – all of them women and members of a self help group (SHG) with none having business experience and only a handful whom have studied beyond school. The SHG members contributed Rs 3,000 (about US$38) each while the 10 directors additionally took a loan from a bank to set up the factory in April last year.
Snow Valley Food is the owner of a leading frozen french fry processing industry group of companies in Asia. Partnering with global potato processing experts and installing fully automated TOMRA production lines plays a core role in their peeling and sorting process and meeting their own high standards.
Belgian real-estate developer Ion was looking for sustainable heating alternatives for a new residential area in the city of Veurne when it received a proposal from a surprising source: PepsiCo. The vapor from cooking up to 20 tons of potatoes per hour could heat a water circuit, replacing natural gas with a more environmentally efficient process while simultaneously providing PepsiCo with a valuable carbon offset.
Herr’s potato chips have been enjoyed by the greater Philadelphia area for more than 75 years. But not every chip is perfect. In fact, some are marked with imperfections and would otherwise become food waste. The concoction of chips, pretzels, popcorn, and more become food for cattle on the adjacent Herr Angus Farm.
Cold french fries are bad enough. But cold, old french fries are even worse. That’s the surprise from Ronald McDonald that one Illinois couple stumbled upon during home renovations, as Sara Smart reports for CNN. Researching the logo on the bag they discovered, the couple learned it was used in McDonald’s production from 1955 to 1961.
KFC Singapore said on Thursday (28 April) that it is not offering French fries for now but assured customers that the item “will be back soon” amid a global potato shortage. McDonald’s Philippines has paused sales of larger portions of their fries due to “the global freight crisis,” saying they are “working hard to bring back all sizes very soon.”
The Mintec Benchmark Prices of processing potatoes in Belgium rose by 11% in the two weeks up to 20th April 2022, and up 264% year-on-year (y-o-y), according to a report by Alice Witchalls for Mintec. This is largely attributed to rising costs of inputs combined with firm demand for processing potatoes.
A substantial new two-year marketing campaign to promote Belgian processed potatoes is launching for the UK retail and foodservice sectors under initiative of VLAM, the Flanders’ Agricultural Marketing Board. “Belgian processed potato products are a strong and proven solution for retailers and caterers, with excellent quality in-home and out-of-home options to meet consumer trends, said Katrien De Nul, promotion manager at VLAM.
Lamb Weston Holdings, Inc. announced its fiscal third quarter 2022 results and updated its fiscal 2022 outlook in early April. Tom Werner, President and CEO said in a press release:: “We continued to make financial and operating progress in the quarter through strong execution of pricing actions to manage significant input, manufacturing and supply chain cost inflation.”
Japanese snack companies are always looking for new and exciting ways to tantalise our taste buds, writes Oona McGee in this news article for SoraNews24. She says the country’s leading potato chip maker, Calbee, is ‘changing the game entirely’ by taking the crunch out of their potato chips, with a new product called “Nure Jaga“, which translates to “wet potato“.
Potato supplier Branston in the UK has partnered with new technology provider Root Extracts to develop a potato plant protein for use in vegan and vegetarian food. Potato protein is high in amino acids and had a high level of functionality – meaning it could, for example, be used as an egg replacement binding agent, the supplier added.
