Allies in Fries: McCain suspends product shipments to Russia, shutters half-built facility

Mar 11 2022, 5:38 pm

Major Canadian french fry producer McCain Foods Limited has shuttered its half-built factory in Russia and is suspending all shipments to the country amid the Russian attack on Ukraine.

The brand, founded in New Brunswick, announced on Thursday that they stopped all construction at their Russian facility on February 24. The facility was being built just south of the capital city of Moscow in the Tula Oblast region.

“We have now made the decision to discontinue the project entirely,” McCain wrote in a release. “In addition, we are also suspending all shipments of our products into the Russian market.

In April of last year, McCain announced that it was investing $150 million Euros into the production facility. The move came after two decades of the brand importing frozen products from their European plants to supply Russia and its neighbouring countries with McCain products.

The facility would have created 200 jobs and was aimed at serving local Russian customers with processed fries and other specialty potato appetizers.

After more than 20 years of importing frozen products from our European plants for sale in Russia and neighbouring countries, McCain has decided to localize production in Russia to supply customers in the area with processed French fries and other specialty potato appetizers.

McCain Foods also donated $200,000 to the Red Cross Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Appeal to join global efforts and aid Ukraine. The brand said they’ve done everything in their power to put the health and safety of McCain employees first.

The family-owned business operates in 160 countries across the globe.

In other potato news, a Quebec restaurant changed the name of their poutine dish to fries-cheese-gravy” earlier this month because “poutine” sounded too much like the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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