Potato News from India

Seeking to debunk some of the misconceptions about consumption of potatoes, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) said it was low in calories, cholesterol, naturally fat-free, nutritious and had cholesterol-lowering properties. Coming forward to support...

The West Bengal government, along with the West Bengal Cold Storage Association (WBCSA), has launched an awareness campaign with an aim to increase per capita consumption of potato as well as prevent losses made by farmers. The programme comes in line ...

Following the success of trial runs in Punjab, Maharasthra and Karnataka, PepsiCo International is reportedly planning to roll out a weather insurance scheme for potato growers in 10 Indian states covering an area of 14,000 hectares. Partnering with IC...

Stratafoam announced this week an association with Emerald Foam Control to introduce their range of foam control additives in India. Among various industries in India that will benefit from this advance chemistry will be the Indian Potato Processing i...

Minister for Fertiliser and Chemicals Ram Vilas Paswan Wednesday said the central government has plans to set up a potato chips unit in Himachal Pradesh. “The central government is contemplating to set up a chips production factory in Kangra district a...

Farmers of the potato belt in Uttar Pradesh now see hope in PepsiCo. The company has started procuring a specific breed of potato from farmers at Rs 825 a quintal (100 kg) while the market is not fetching a price of even Rs 300 per quintal. The company...

Angry farmers in the Indian state of West Bengal have been dumping their potato crop on roads in protest against poor prices. Farmers say they are selling at a loss because a bumper crop and lack of storage facilities has led to a dramatic fall in pr...

The snack food market in India is $3 billion;with the organized segment accounting for almost half of the market share and growing at rate of 15 to 20 percent per year.However, the imported snack food market is growing but small ($30 million) due to hi...

At a time when potato farmers in West Bengal are forced to sell their produce at a huge discount owing to a bumper potato production of 88 lakh tonne this year, they found by their side not only the state government, but also the cold storage owners. T...

Thousands of families — around five lakh (500.000) people — in Ranchi, Lohardaga, Ramgarh, Jamshedpur, Koderma, Deoghar, Dumka, Bokaro, Gumla and Hazaribagh for the past three years have actively joined the supply chain of Pepsico Ltd, the MNC (Multina...

McDonald's, a global fast food giant, on Thursday opened its first "Drive Thru'' outlet at a HPCL retail outlet in the city. As part of its strategic tie-up with HPCL to combine fast-food outlets with gas stations, McDonald's launched a full scal...

About 50 farmers from different districts in Gujarat have pooled in Rs 1 lakh each to launch their own company to export commodities like potatoes, groundnut, cotton, mangoes etc. KP Agri International Pvt Ltd aims to export agri-commodities to foreign...

Buoyed by the growing demand of its snacks, Pepsico India Holdings is increasing production across its various plants by one third of its current capacity in India in the next 18 months. "There has been a growing demand for our products and we wil...

The potato research centre, which has earned a name for producing quality potato seeds, is facing problems due to water scarcity. Most of the research center’s water sources have dried up. Even people working at the centre are not getting sufficient s...

McDonald's India plans to spend Rs.1 billion to open 15 more restaurants in Kolkata over the next three to five years. Vikram Bakshi, managing director of Connaught Plaza Restaurants Pvt. Ltd., a partner of McDonald's India (north and east region), sa...

This news from Deesa town in Gujarat reiterates the need for India to focus on building new warehouses across the country to help farmers keep their harvest in safe places. In a recent incident, farmers in Deesa in north Gujarat lost their potato harve...

MY 2008/09 total oilseed production is forecast at 36 million tons, up 6 percent over MY 2007/08, mainly due to an anticipated increase in soybean and peanut production in response to prevailing high prices. MY 2008/09 edible oil imports are forecast a...

Potato farmers and traders have questioned the government's rationale behind banning futures trading in the crop when there is a glut in the market and prices have declined due to bumper production. "There was no reason for the government to ban ...