Banas Dairy expands french fry production capacity

On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the expanded facility in Sanadar (Deesa taluka of Vav-Tharad district) via video conferencing. According to the official release, the expansion works for processing and packaging lines actually started in April 2026. The facility's capacity has increased from the previous two tonnes per hour. The project is designed to strengthen the local potato processing ecosystem, expand market opportunities for local farmers, and meet the demand for value-added products in domestic and export markets.

Banaskantha district has become a major hub for growing processing cultivars of potatoes. Over the past 25 years, the area under such crops here has increased from approximately 400 hectares to 61,016 hectares. In the 2024–2025 season, the district harvested about 1.87 million tonnes of potatoes with a yield of about 30 tonnes per hectare. The sector's development is supported by the absence of winter fogs, high dry matter content, and contract farming.

Banas Dairy entered the French fries market in 2019 under the Amul brand. The cooperative has created an integrated supply chain covering certified seed production, growing, procurement, storage, and processing. The "seed-to-fries" model uses virus-free seed material from the Central Potato Research Institute and other suppliers. Banas Dairy propagates the material in a tissue culture laboratory and obtains G0 mini-tubers in an aeroponic facility in Kanpur. Then the seed is advanced in the field to the G3 generation to provide farmers with quality planting material meeting industrial processing requirements.

An important element of the model is the mechanism of pre-fixing procurement prices at the time of issuing seed to farmers, which helps them plan production. In the 2023–2024 season, the manufacturer passed on a price difference of approximately 1.83 crore rupees to potato growers, while the procurement price under the buyback program was 13 rupees per unit in 2024–2025 and 14 rupees per unit in 2025–2026.

The enterprise infrastructure includes a 10,000-tonne storage facility commissioned in 2024. In addition, an agreement was signed in November 2025 with Bharatiya Beej Sahakari Samiti Ltd to provide certified seed to farmers across India. Waste management has been established at the enterprise: organic residues are processed into biogas, and by-products are returned to agricultural fields.