Belgians have been urged to eat potatoes at least two times per week to help tackle the *checks notes* potato mountain that is currently overrunning the country.
While Australians are fighting over toilet paper and hand sanitiser, our far-superior Belgian mates are struggling to handle a much more delicious problem. 750,000 tonnes of potato, to be specific.
According to the Telegraph, Belgians potato farms are urging citizens to eat frites (twice-fried potato chips, aka – yum) to help dwindle down the country’s whopping potato mountain that has built up as a result of the coronavirus lockdowns.
“Let us all eat French fries twice instead of once a week,” the trade association for potato growers’ (Belgapom) secretary general Romain Cools said.
“By eating an extra portion during this crisis they could collaborate with farmers and the industry to avoid food losses.”
Belgapom, the country’s trade union for potato farmers, is leading the campaign in an attempt to save the potato mountain from ending up in landfill. Secretary general Cools told CNN that he hopes Belgians eating more frites at home will “enable our processors to avoid food waste by processing more potatoes and store them in our freezers — which are nearly full now.”
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Belgium was the world’s largest exporter of frozen fries, but Belgapom now estimates that fry-consumption has decreased by a whopping 40%. In 2019, Belgian producers were responsible for supplying an estimated 2.3 million tonnes of the world’s frozen french fries, but with no restaurants to supply to, they’ve ended up with a big ol’ mountain of taters.So it looks like this is an excuse to treat yourself to an extra side of chips with dinner.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I would like to move to Belgium, where eating fries every week is not only accepted, but encouraged.
