The global potato giant McCain will start building its first factory for the production of French fries in Russia. To this end, the Russian subsidiary McCain Foods Rus LLC had already been set up by Mc Cain Foods Holland in June.
The Russian fries factory will be built in the city of Uzlovaya, some 140 kilometers west of Moscow. Tula region governor Alexey Dyumin and McCain Foods Rus general manager Alexander Petrov have signed an agreement to build the potato processing complex, Russia's Agroinvestor reports.
That company will be McCain's first production site in Russia. It is planned to invest about 12.7 billion rubles in the project. The new plant will not only be able to meet domestic demand and replace imports, but will also work for exports in the future, the regional government noted. The chips market in Russia is currently not fully covered by local players.
Plans have been previously reported by the Canadian company to build a factory in Russia, but that fell through at the last minute. For example, in 2011 it was a company in the Bryansk region, its capacity is said to be about 150 thousand tons. This possibility came up again at the beginning of 2019.
McCain Foods Limited is the world leader in frozen potato nutrition. The company produces a third of the world's fries. McCain's operations include the production of French fries and potato processing.
The capacity of the new Russian company is not specified.
McCain was founded in Canada in 1957 and now has 51 plants in Canada, the United States, Australia, the Netherlands (Lelystad), the EU and other countries. In Russia, the company already has its own distribution division and a potato farm.