European Potato Processors Association (EUPPA) elects new board

The European Potato Processors Association (EUPPA) general assembly has approved yesterday new statutes and elected a new board at its meeting in Brussels earlier this week.

The EUPPA member companies actively process potatoes in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom. To achieve a better representation and optimise its work a new collaboration has now been established between national associations and individual companies. Also a new, permanent, secretary general, has been elected (in the past the secretariat was run by a national secretary general on a rotation system.)

Romain Cools, the current secretary general of EUPPA will be succeeded as from 1 January 2013 onwards by Adriana Nosewicz from AGEP Association Management were she has represented a number of associations including the European non-alcoholic beverages association, UNESDA and AIPCE, the European Fish Processors Association.
 

Adriana will support the newly elected EUPPA board comprising Kees Meijer (president), Ernst Rainer Schnetkamp (vice president), Antoon Wallays (treasurer) Nicola Pizzoli, Christophe Rigo and Richard Harris. The new board provides a balanced representation of the major producing countries as well multinational and SME companies.
 Potato processing began in Europe around 1960 and the sector has grown rapidly over the past decades. Some 130 processors, comprising both SMEs and international companies, process approximately 13 million tons of potatoes into frozen and chilled french fries, croquettes, crisps, flakes, granules and other potato specialities. The sector turned over a total of 5,2 billion Euro in 2011-2012.

Recent growth in the sector has been largely driven by an increasing global demand from clients in South America, Asia, Oceania and Africa. In meeting this demand the European potato processors also create added value for the EU the complete potato supply chain.
 EUPPA has increased its activities significantly over the past few years as illustrated by the recent development of a web-based tool for healthy frying (www.goodfries.eu) and by the EUPPA dossier on carbon leakage. The association plans to also take a more active approach in other areas including food legislation, trade issues and the balance of relations in the food chain.

The newly invigorated EUPPA will present itself at an event scheduled in Brussels on Thursday 16 May 2013.

EUPPA is also an active member of Food Drink Europe.

As of 1/1/2013 EUPPA can be contacted at the following address: EUPPA, Blvd. Saint-Michel 77-79, 1040 Brussels, Belgium. Tel. +32 2 743 8743 and mail: anosewicz@euppa.eu