Egypt: Chipsy launches agricultural program to produce all seed potatoes locally

Pepsico's joint venture in Egypt, Chipsy For Food Industries SAE, announced a major agricultural programme to produce all seed potatoes locally.

This is a follow up on Chipsy’s long journey of conducting scientific research and field trials using innovative and state of the art technologies, according to a company press release.

Through this programme, Chipsy will be able to provide locally cultivated seed potatoes to the Egyptian market instead of importing seed potatoes from Europe.

In 2017, the project helped the company to provide 70% of its seed potatoes from local sources, and thanks to this programme, 100% of Chipsy’s potatoes are locally sourced.

This comes in line with Egypt’s 2030 Vision, seeking to minimise the amount of imported resources, and rely more on locally produced resources, which sums up Chipsy’s approach in this programme. This programme also highlights the importance of the cooperation between the public and private sectors, as both sides share the same goal, the company added.

Tamer Mosalam, general manager at Chipsy Egypt:
 

“We are very proud of launching this programme, as it will strongly affect the overall Egyptian agricultural sector, the consumer, and definitely the economy.”

“Egypt has an enormous agricultural potential that remains uncultivated and barely used. This is why we are very keen to develop the sector as a whole, by providing local seeds with premium quality, able to resist all transportation and weather conditions that could damage the seeds.”

“This reflects the company’s commitment to build and develop the country’s economy and infrastructure.”

“This programme is practically creating shared values for different stakeholders in the Egyptian economy and community, by ensuring a well-established knowledge transfer system, as well as creating new job opportunities and empowering farmers.”

Several years of research were required in order to inaugurate this project, as scientific research continued for three years, with the help of 17 agricultural engineers and 150 of their associates and experts in cultivating potato seeds, in order to create a new generation of enhanced and developed seeds.

The project faced many challenges, such as finding the proper soil, as well as developing new types of seeds that are strong enough to endure all conditions. Chipsy was also able to create more than 4,000 new job opportunities, with 40,000 feddans (17000 hectares) allocated for producing potatoes.

Through this programme, Chipsy was able to develop workers’ skill sets, with an elaborate knowledge transfer procedure, to enhance the company’s position as a market leader, and one of Egypt’s giants in terms of innovation in the fast-moving consumer goods sector.