McCain Foods subsidiary Lutosa inaugurates world’s largest fully integrated potato processing plant

On Wednesday October 17th, a new french fry production line was inaugurated at the Leuze-en-Hainaut site of McCain Foods subsidiary Lutosa SA.

Present at the ceremony were Christian Brotcorne, the mayor of Leuze, Max Koeune, President and CEO of McCain Foods, Erwin Pardon, Managing Director McCain Continental Europe, Alain Duranleau, Managing Director of Lutosa SA and Guy Van den Broeke, who founded Lutosa in 1978. 

 

From left to right: Erwin Pardon (Managing Director McCain Continental Europe), Guy Van den Broeke (Founder of Lutosa), Alain Duranleau (Managing Director of Lutosa SA) and Max Koeune (President and CEO of McCain Foods)

The new 25 to 30 T/h production line currently employs 59 people in 3 shifts. 

The installation included countless add-ons to the Leuze site: a new unloading, washing and grading station employing 54 people in 5 shifts, a dry store with 4,400 pallet locations for foil and cardboard boxes, another warehouse for the storage of 800 ingredient pallets, an extra conveyor tunnel to the cold stores, etc. 

All this comes on top of the 2017 investments in 2 new frozen potato specialty lines employing 56 staff in 4 shifts. These lines produce a wide variety of mash based and shredded specialties. 

According to McCain Foods, this Lutosa plant is now world’s largest fully integrated potato processing plant.