Potato News from Belgium

On January 20, the foundation deed of Belpotato.be was officially signed in Huldenberg. The composition of the Executive Board ensures that there are balances between growers, traders and processors, and between Dutch and French speakers.

Michel Picandet has been appointed Executive Vice President and Head of TOMRA Food. He joined the company on January 1st, 2020 and will be based at the TOMRA Food headquarters in Leuven, Belgium.

Entering a new era in potato storage: Belgapom has formulated its position on how to handle chlorpropham as of the 2020 harvest.

The scale of the global food waste problem is staggering. According to reports, 1.6 billion tons of food are lost or wasted every year, equating to a total value of $1.2 trillion being wiped from the supply chain.

Nicolai Prytz, sustainability and strategy director at TOMRA, has looked at how businesses, consumers and policymakers can help make the future of food sustainable.

By using the TOMRA 3A high-performance sorting machine Duchemin (Caen, France) are able to ensure their potatoes are a premium product.

Investment in Vilvoorde will give customers the opportunity to create new recipes and ingredients with Cargill’s R&D experts in Vilvoorde, Belgium.

The NEPG (North-Western European Potato Growers) have released a new potato production estimate for consumption potatoes in the leading 5 North-Western potato countries. If all potatoes will be lifted totally about 26.9 million tons will be harvested.

AVR is introducing its new Puma 4.0 at the upcoming Agritechnica fair. The four-row potato harvester is the successor of the popular Puma 3 and is now fully cloud connected.

TOMRA exhibits the TOMRA 5A, its avant-garde model for potato sorting. Compac’s new UltraView inspection module maximizes Spectrim’s grading performance.

Aunque todavía se tiene que empezar a recolectar, en la empresa belga De Aardappelhoeve tienen bastante claro que el rendimiento de las patatas no llegará a niveles récord este año.

The Service Public de Wallonie has granted a building permit for 'Mydibel Fresh', a new plant in Mouscron for the production of chilled french fries. The construction of Mydibel Fresh is part of the company’s strategy of sustainable development.

The world is currently wasting 1.3 billion tonnes of the food produced
for human consumption every year, which amounts to a third of all food produced for that purpose.

Dutch-based company Aviko, one of Europe’s biggest producers of fresh, frozen, dried and specialty potato products, has announced a major investment in its production capacity in Poperinge, Belgium.

One of the three most cultivated and eaten food products in the world, the demand for potatoes continues to increase despite heightened uncertainty within the sector. Last year European potato production was hit by the worst drought in more than 40 years.

Growers, suppliers, grubbing demonstrations - everything to do with potatoes. That is what the latest edition of Potato Europe was all about. This year, this trade show was held in Doornik/Tournai, Belgium on 4 and 5 September.

The NEPG (North-Western European Potato Growers) estimates the
forecasted potato harvest 2019 between 27 and 27,3 million tons for the
5 leading potato countries. This is 3% more than the 5 years average and
12% more than last year.

TOMRA Sorting Food has introduced the TOMRA 3A sensor-based sorting machine for freshly harvested root crops, offering potato growers unrivalled sorting capabilities, dependability, and affordability.