HyFarm bets on UP's warming climate to build India's next French fry hub

Sabarkantha (Gujarat), Mar 1 (PTI) Sitting in a Global GAP-certified village in Gujarat's potato belt, the man steering HyFun Foods' agribusiness arm HyFarm makes an unlikely-sounding wager – rising temperatures in Uttar Pradesh, long seen as a problem for Indian agriculture, will quietly transform the country's largest table potato state into its next French fry powerhouse.

"I could see in the last six-seven years, the solid percentile in UP is increasing because of temperatures going up in that particular area," said Soundarradjane S, CEO of Gujarat-based HyFarm Foods.

"Clearly, we see UP in the next three to five years will emerge as the next processing hub," he told PTI in an interview.

The logic is agronomic. A good French fry needs high dry matter content -- what the industry calls "solid percentile" -- ideally between 20 and 24 per cent, a range that keeps the fry firm and crispy. Achieving it requires long sunshine hours during the day followed by chilled temperatures at night, a diurnal fluctuation that Gujarat's climate reliably delivers.

Table potatoes, by contrast, have a solid percentage below 17.

UP potatoes, traditionally grown for the table, hovered around 17 per cent four-five years ago. They now clock 19-20 per cent and climbing, a shift Soundarradjane attributes to gradual warming trends.

FROM 4 LAKH TONNES to 10 LAKH TONNES BY 2028 —----------------------------------------------------------------- HyFarm currently works with 7,000 farmers across approximately 30,000 hectares in Gujarat -- Sabarkantha, Gandhinagar -- procuring around 4 lakh tonnes of potatoes annually through assured buyback arrangements. The target is to procure 10 lakh tonnes from 30,000 farmers by 2028, with expansions into Madhya Pradesh in 2028 and Uttar Pradesh in 2030.

"Our plan is very clear. We would like to diversify into different geographies … We will also enter into MP and UP in 2028 and 2030," Soundarradjane said.

THE SEED BEHIND FRENCH FRIES —-------------------------------------------- What sets HyFarm apart from conventional contract farming operations, and from competitors such as Iscon Balaji Foods Pvt Ltd is its seed-to-shelf model: a six-to-seven-year cycle that begins in a laboratory and ends in a fast food outlet. Iscon Balaji Foods is the market leader in the French fry segment and sources seeds from external suppliers like ITC and Mahindra.

"It takes six to seven years for a consumer to taste the first French fries," Soundarradjane explains.

The journey starts with mini-tubers grown through aeroponics over roughly 18 months, moves to corporate farms (HyFarm leases around 500 acres), and then to farmer buyback generations before the commercial crop reaches processing units.

HyFarm now produces 90-95 per cent of its own seed, distributing close to 1 lakh tonnes -- a figure that has doubled in just two years. In most countries, seed multiplication is a specialised, standalone industry; internalising it as HyFarm has done is unusual even by global standards.

"In the last seven years, we started with 3,000 tonnes of seed distribution to farmers. Today, we have become the second-largest seed multiplication company in the potato industry," Soundarradjane said.

That vertical integration was built partly out of necessity. Relying on external seed suppliers historically led to 20-30 per cent procurement shortfalls due to weather disruptions. Today, HyFun supplies the likes of Burger King (over 90 per cent of requirements), KFC, and McDonald's and Pizza Hut domestically, and exports to more than 50 countries, with Japan as its quality benchmark.

THE SANTANA PROBLEM —------------------------------- India's entire French fry industry runs on a single Dutch variety -- Santana -- a yellow-flesh potato that, ironically, never found commercial success in Europe. The dependence is widely acknowledged as a vulnerability, and HyFarm is working to address it.

"We are partnering with several breeders across geographies to try to get varied germplasm suiting for different states in India," Soundarradjane said, adding that Central Potato Research Institute's (CPRI) newer varieties -- Kufri Frysona and Kufri FryoM -- are beginning to gain traction as white-flesh alternatives. He expects more variety options to arrive in farmers' fields within three to four years.

On the question of royalties paid to Dutch breeders -- a bill that only grows as volumes scale -- the executive is pragmatic. Rather than investing 16-20 years in building proprietary varieties from scratch, the strategy is to identify proven germplasm from geographies with similar tropical conditions: the Middle East, Egypt, Spain, and California.

KEEPING FARMERS IN —-------------------------- With an 80-85 per cent farmer retention rate over seven years, HyFarm's model leans heavily on bundled services rather than price alone. Constant churn would be unsustainable -- retraining new growers season after season is both costly and slow, and the agronomic knowledge embedded in a trained farmer network takes years to rebuild.

Farmers get crop advisory through the Farmoji mobile app -- all 7,000 of them are registered and actively using it -- competitive procurement pricing, seed financing (only 50 per cent of seed cost charged upfront, the rest adjusted against produce), and access to a network of bulk and bag cold stores across Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana and UP.

"The digital connect is much stronger and it is strengthening our relationship with the farmers," Soundarradjane said.

AN INDUSTRY WITHOUT A VOICE —------------------------------------------ Despite India's emergence as a significant player in global frozen potato trade -- exports surged nearly 45 per cent year-on-year in 2025, crossing 2.51 lakh tonnes -- the sector has no unified industry body.

Soundarradjane says conversations are underway to establish a Potato Processors Association of India, along the lines of similar bodies in western markets.

"High time for us to launch this," he says. The proposed body would advocate for export promotion alongside APEDA, globally certified seed standards, tariff benefits and cold chain infrastructure investment across the country.

India's per capita potato consumption of around 25 kg annually -- compared with 70-100 kg in Europe -- leaves considerable room for growth.

With the French fry segment already expanding at roughly 20 per cent year-on-year, and HyFun expanding its own capacity significantly over the next five to six years even as the current market leader Iskon Balaji has recently scaled up, UP and MP may yet prove the most consequential additions to the country's potato map. PTI LUX MR