Industry Analysis

Two of the world's largest French fry factories were built by the same in-house engineering team over eight years — and the person who led that work then left to advise the industry at large. That trajectory says something about how capital projects in potato processing are actually staffed now.

Freight and labor costs are climbing faster than potato margins can absorb, and expanding acreage isn't a reliable fix. That's pushing attention toward post-harvest sorting, where computer vision and AI are starting to replace manual grading lines.

A multi-phase potato processing complex under construction in Ukraine's Cherkasy region aims to end the country's total reliance on imported potato flour and build out french-fry, storage, and starch capacity in stages through 2027.