McCain to Build New Factory in Russia

McCain, one of the leading potato processors in the world, has begun for the construction of a plant in the Uzlovaya Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Tula Region of Russia, according to kommersant.ru.

The plant's location will economically viable due to the low prices of potatoes in the Russian Federation and the reduced logistics costs, but there may be problems with the quality of raw materials, reports suggest.

In June, McCain Foods Holland B.V. and McCain Europa B.V. established McCain Foods Rus LLC in the city of Uzlovaya, Tula Region, whose activities include the production of ready-made products as well as the processing of potatoes.

Some of the conditions for investors in the region are zero import duty and VAT rate until 2065, and an income tax rate of 2% for the first ten years.

The McCain’s European office did not provide prompt comment. The Development Corporation of the Tula region also said that they could not yet disclose information about the project.

The fact that McCain is studying the possibility of building a plant for the production of French fries in the Russian Federation was previously reported, but no steps were made until now.

The largest Russian producer of French to date is Lamb Weston Belaya Dacha LLC (a joint venture of Belaya Dacha Group of Companies and the Dutch Lamb Weston / Meijer), which operates an enterprise in Lipetsk with a capacity of up to 100,000 tons per year.