Ukraine Breaks Ground on Largest Potato Processing Hub to Cut Import Reliance

Ukraine's plan to end its reliance on imported potato flour rests on a single construction site in the Cherkasy region, at the Biosens Industrial Park. The first phase carries a price tag of roughly $21.4 million (UAH 960 million), covers 6,500 square metres, and is expected to produce 25,000 tonnes of potato flour annually once commissioned in late 2026 or early 2027, an analysis published by foodbusinessmea.com details. Equipment for the plant has already arrived in the country, and surrounding infrastructure work — road access and a natural gas connection — is underway, backed by a UAH 24.7 million ($0.55 million) government co-financing allocation made in December 2025.

Ukraine currently imports about 2,500 tonnes of potato flour every year to supply its bakery, confectionery, meat-processing, and sauce industries. That's the volume the first phase is designed to fully replace — a modest number in absolute terms, but a telling one for a country with significant potato acreage and no domestic flour-processing capacity of its own. The project was announced by Dmytro Kysylevskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament's Committee on Economic Development, who framed it around national self-sufficiency and new export opportunities.

The flour plant is only the opening phase. A second stage, due to start in 2027, adds a French fries production line with annual capacity ranging from 60,000 to 150,000 tonnes, at an estimated cost of $55.7 million (UAH 2.5 billion). A third phase would expand fries capacity further, requiring an additional $66.8 million (UAH 3 billion). Beyond fries, the wider plan includes a 20,000-tonne potato storage facility, a plant to convert potato peel into protein and starch, and a greenhouse complex fitted with its own cogeneration unit.

To hold all of this, the Biosens Industrial Park itself is expanding, from 29.6 hectares to 40 hectares, with a further 60-hectare reserve site set aside for future use. That reserve site is arguably the clearest signal of intent in the whole plan — the fries, storage, and starch additions already announced would fill only part of the expanded footprint, leaving space for processing capacity beyond what's currently scoped out.

If the timeline holds, Ukraine's food manufacturers gain a domestic flour supplier for the first time, closing an import line that has run at roughly 2,500 tonnes a year. Local potato growers would gain a large-scale buyer, with fries production, storage, and starch/protein processing layered on top of the flour operation — described in the report as a vertically integrated chain running from field to finished product. Whether the reserve land eventually gets built out, and how quickly the later phases move once the flour line is running, will determine whether this becomes a regional processing hub or stays a single-product plant.