The figures published by Belgapom, the Belgian potato trade & processing industry association, for 2020 illustrate the pandemic’s impact on the sector: in total only 5.08 million tons of potatoes were processed into fries, mashed potato products, crisps and flakes, while all the companies had budgeted for new growth for that year. It concerns a decrease of 4% compared to 2019, so that the production figures reached the lowest level in 3 years.

In addition, the corona crisis also resulted in a fall in investments by 15% to EUR248m in 2020 while direct employment in the sector took a hit too, with a 16.5% decrease from 5,001 employees last year to 4,179 FTEs in 2020.

The production figures in the frozen sector fell by almost 100,000 tons (from 2.23 million tons to 2.13 million tons) which represents 4.5%. The impact on the production of fresh fries was far larger relatively speaking: 660,000 tons (- 18.7%). The fall remained limited for the other products (mashed products, crisps, flakes and granules) to 11,000 tons (from 684,000 tons to 671,000 tons), namely 2%.

These figures illustrate earlier reports with regard to the impact of the closure of food service and the same level of consumption of potato crisps or the temporary rise in the sale of frozen potato products.

On the other hand, the 2020 export figures for frozen potato products show that the Belgian producers have been able to limit the decline compared to the figures for companies in neighboring countries. This can be explained by the fact that the Belgian industry focuses more on the retail sector than the companies in the Netherlands and France. Nor should we forget that quite a few Belgian potato growers sell their potatoes to processing companies in those countries so that the pandemic’s impact is greater on those arable farms.

Finally, Brexit will also have played a role in the production and sale of frozen potato products. The United Kingdom is the second largest buyer of these products, after France. With an eye to Brexit at the end of December, exports across the Channel had risen sharply. It seems self-evident that a correction of these figures can be expected for the beginning of 2021.

Read more on this topic in the upcoming March/April issue of Potato Processing International magazine!