No-nonsense, no-frills news stories from around the world
As we’ve seen over the past month, the global supply crisis and other factors have taken a huge toll on the supply of potatoes scheduled for the thousands of McDonald’s locations in Japan. Now even convenience stores are getting in on the action with Ministop announcing the Bucket Potato, which boasts three times the regular amount of their X Fried Potatoes for 641 yen.
The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) says in its weekly update that reports from growers indicate indicate that quality issues are emerging around Ireland and saleable yields are significantly reduced as a result. Processing factories are running to capacity and sales of product within and outside Europe are now almost back to pre-Covid levels.
A Prince Edward Island company has brokered a deal to send as many as 700 tractor trailer loads of surplus P.E.I processing potatoes to Lamb Weston’s french fry plant in Canada’s Alberta province. As Nancy Russell reports for CBC News, the deal was put together by Terry Curley of Monaghan Farms, who is part of a working group set up to deal with the potato wart crisis in Prince Edward Island.
In December, McDonald’s Japan announced that it would be suspending sales of all French fry orders except smalls due to a potato shortage. Now, rival Japanese fast food chain Freshness Burger announced it will be increasing the amount of French fires in its regular and large-size orders, as well as its combo meals, by 25 percent and without increasing the price.
Supply line troubles between Japan and North America rob fans of breakfast bliss. As Casey Baseel reports for SoraNews24, it was with great sadness that McDonald’s Japan suspended sales of medium and large-size orders of French fries in mid-December. Now comes more sad news, as McDonald’s is also suspending sales of hash browns in Japan.
As we approached the end of last year, fast food fans were hit by the news of a French fry shortage in Japan which has most notably affected the chain McDonald’s. For a week the restaurant limited sales to only small-size orders of fries, which are called “Mac Fry Potato” in Japan. At the time, the rationing was attributed to delays caused by the ongoing global supply chain crisis as well as large-scale flooding in British Columbia, Canada, where the potatoes are imported from.
As Miriam Berger reports in an article for The Washington Post, a number of popular items, including marmite and cream cheese, have faced scarcities amid supply chain disruptions wrought by the coronavirus pandemic and extreme weather. Potatoes are the latest to join the list, becoming unevenly available in some countries and fast-food chains because of a confluence of factors.
Lamb Weston announced its fiscal second quarter 2022 results yesterday and updated its fiscal 2022 outlook. “We remain confident in the strong long-term outlook for the global frozen potato category, and believe that executing on our strategies and ongoing investments in our business will keep us on a path to deliver sustainable, profitable growth and create value for our stakeholders,” said Tom Werner, President and CEO.
At today’s Potato Business Summit – hosted in conjunction with the Potato Expo 2022 in Anaheim, California – Cedric Porter of World Potato Markets and Liam Glennon of World Potato Congress presented on the European potato market outlook. Mr Porter said it’s clear that processing usage has recovered in the last few months of 2020. The recovery in exports has been very much concentrated in exports outside the the EU, “which is probably a concern for exporters in North America”.
Botaniline, an American food technology and innovation company, has created a healthier ground protein product line. By substituting a percentage of the meat with potato, Botaniline is able to achieve cleaner label processed meat products that are lower in sodium and saturated fat. The result is a reduction in sodium by up to 90% and a product that’s free of all allergens, gluten, MSG, TVP, and soy.
Fast food chain KFC has suffered a shortage of French fries at its outlets in Kenya following delays in delivery from its overseas suppliers, forcing it to offer customers alternative food items in place of French fries. The company at first said it does not source potatoes for fries from local suppliers due to ‘global quality standards’, but then said on Tuesday this might happen ‘in the near future’.
Uglies Kettle Chips announces a brand redesign with a new logo, website, and a package design ready to hit shelves this month. Uglies, a division of Dieffenbach’s Snacks, has been on a mission since 2017 to reduce waste, support farmers, and fight hunger by using imperfect potatoes to craft delicious kettle-cooked potato chips.
McDonald’s put medium and large servings of french fries back on its Japanese menu Friday after flying in much-needed supplies, ending a weeklong restriction caused by shortages that have stymied the nation’s food industry. While the restriction has been lifted for now, there is concern that McDonald’s could limit serving sizes once again, depending on inventory levels.
McDonald’s Japan will only serve small-sized fries for a week starting Friday, as a result of delays in potato shipments from Canada. “Due to flooding near the Port of Vancouver and the global supply chain crunch caused by the coronavirus pandemic, there are delays in the supply of potatoes,” the company announced on Tuesday. Potatoes used to make french fries are usually imported from North America, McDonald’s Japan said.
Vakuum Food GmbH & Co. KG is a snacks producer based in Neuenkirchen near Osnabrück and was founded by Martin Johanning in 2018. The company’s new brand is called the “Snacks-TEAM” and is the result of producing high-quality snacks conventionally and with organic quality, using a combination of high-performance vacuum packaging and pulsed electric field (PEF) technology.
A new partnership could see Ireland back producing significant amounts of chips for chip shops and distributors throughout the country. As Tamara Fitzpatrick reports for the Independent, O’Shea Farms from Piltown, Co Kilkenny have joined forces with Meadowfresh Foods in Tallow, Co Waterford to market and supply fresh Irish chipping potatoes.
Specialists at leading global food processing machinery manufacturer, Key Technology point out that two hundred illnesses and diseases can be attributed to parasites and bacteria. These and other pathogens can sometimes find their way into food products if those goods are handled improperly at any point throughout production. In an industry that feeds a country of 325 million people, maintaining food safety is everyone’s responsibility.
IndexBox has just published a new report on the U.S. frozen potato market. American preserved frozen potato imports increased from 695K tonnes in 2010 to 1.1M tonnes in 2020. In value terms, imports expanded from $653M to $1.1B over this period. Canada supplies 85% of the total volume of imports. In 2020, Belgium emerged as the fastest-growing supplier of frozen potatoes to the U.S., reaching a 10% share of the total imports.
From easier cutting and acrylamide mitigation to lower oil uptake and crunchier crisps, pulsed electric field (PEF) treatment delivers a diverse range of benefits, as Michelle Knott writes in an article published in the winter edition of The Snacks Magazine 2021. Knott explains that electroporation uses a pulsed electric field to drill minute pores in the cell membranes of raw vegetables, leading to a diverse range of benefits – both during processing and in end products.
According to a news report by Reuters, fewer shops in Britain have shortages of potato crisps this week than the week before, official figures showed on Thursday, in a sign that supply problems for the popular snack food are easing. Britain’s biggest crisp producer Walkers had to scale back production at the start of the month after problems with an IT systems upgrade, which it warned could take weeks to fix.
Pulsemaster is a leading provider of Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) systems for the potato processing industry globally. Pulsed electric field treatment of potatoes being processed results in a number of benefits for the customer. Processors using the Pulsemaster’s PEF system obtain their biggest benefit when cutting long, thin French fries from big, raw potatoes, according to Mark de Boevere, Managing director of Pulsemaster.
At its facility in the former Eastman Kodak campus in Rochester, New York, Farther Farms makes fresh potatoes into fries, treats them with supercritical carbon dioxide, and packages them. The packages can travel wherever they need to go without refrigeration, and the fries are ready for the fryer, reports Megan Poinski in an in-depth article for FoodDive.
Kiremko and Insort announced today that they have entered into a long term global strategic partnership. In this partnership Insort will provide sorting and sensor expertise and equipment based on Chemical Imaging Technology. Kiremko will develop advanced process controls, utilizing inline data provided by Insort.
