Belgians Object Construction of Potato Processing Plant

Inhabitants of a small town in the French-speaking province of Hainaut are trying to stop one of the country's largest potato processors from constructing a gigantic EUR300m factory on their doorstep, which the company says will create hundreds of jobs in Belgium's south, which has been economically hammered by deindustrialization, reports POLITICO.eu.

A residents' collective called Nature Without Frying has managed to delay Clarebout's project, arguing the factory will bring bad smells, pollution, noise and precarious, unsafe employment. "This site is not suitable for industry, not at all," Florence Defourny, spokesperson of Nature Without Frying, told a 100-strong crowd who protested at the prospective site southwest of the city of Mons, next to the industrial park where Clarebout already operates a potato storage facility.

Raphaël Tassart, Clarebout's spokesperson, described as "false" the assertion that the company pollutes at the two processing factories it currently operates in Belgium, in Nieuwkerke and Warneton. "We undergo checks and we are on the side of nature," he told POLITICO.

But the protesters insist they are trying to protect something more than their own back gardens and are questioning the way food is produced. “At the very start, we were against Clarebout, but today we are against any industrial model that would completely damage our environment and which doesn’t fit with our values,” Defourny added.

Manuel Eggen, a policy officer for the food and human rights NGO FIAN, said Belgium's historic tradition of small-scale potato farming and double-fried artisanal frites has been hijacked by a handful of potato barons.

Jan Clarebout, who started processing potatoes in 1988, is now the head of one of the richest families in Belgium, although his company still describes itself as a family business.

Belgium's global supremacy in frozen exports means 90% of spuds are sold overseas. According to a report Eggen penned on the Belgian potato sector, Clarebout would become the world's biggest potato processor if the Frameries factory is built.

"The model of the small, artisanal production and processing can no longer survive in this context," he said.