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French fry maker eyes export market

Kawsah Khan
A local French fry producer plans to increase its production in a bid to tap the export potential.
“We will invest Tk 8 crore more to produce 80-90 tonnes of French fry a month by 2010/’ said Eshtiaque Ahmed, managing director of Ejab Gorup, the owning company of Quality French Fried Potato.
Quality French Fried Potato now produces 8-9 tonnes of French fry per month on commercial basis and supplies to local food shops.
Industry insiders said the initiative will help increase the consumption of potato, much to the happiness of growers who often face problems in marketing their produce in the event of bumper production of potato.
As it requires 2.5 tonnes of potato to produce one tonne of French fry, the Quality French Fried Potato will consume 2,500-2,600 tonnes of potato every year.
The initiative to increase the company's production capacity comes at a time when the country's potato growers face huge difficulties to store or market their crop in the wake of record 80 lakh tonnes of potato production this year.
Describing future plans, officials also said the company wants to explore the domestic market.
Describing the demand of the product in the international market, Ahmed said, “One super market chain in United Arab Emirates alone sells French fry worth USS 6.6 million per month."
The food item has a huge market in the Middle East, Europe and in America, he added.
He also said, “The present amount of our production is so small that we are failing even to meet the domestic market demand. In case of export, we have to send in huge quantities that is not possible to do with our present production capacity."
The officials of the company also said after increasing the production base they will start campaigning in the domestic market to increase the consumption of the 'ready to cook'food item.
"We also want to expand the domestic market as French fry is now consumed only by a small part of the people of the country. But we are not going for any campaign now as we don't produce enough products,” Ahmed added.
Per 500-gram packet of French fry of the company is now sold at Tk 65 in retail shops, mainly in super chain stores where as the imported 450-gram packets are being sold atTk95-Tk 105. kawsar@thedailystar.net