McDonald's organized a virtual press tour, during which journalists were shown the entire process of creating one of the company's most popular products - French fries. Representatives of the company, as well as the Lam Weston Belaya Dacha plant, spoke about the path of potatoes “from planting to plate”.
The potato variety Innovator is used for the manufacture of the product. Its distinctive features are its large tuber size and high yield. In the fields where potatoes are grown, soil testing is carried out twice a year.
According to the general director of Belaya Dacha Farming, Artem Belyaev, during the harvesting process, an electronic potato tuber is used, equipped with special sensors that signal the level of shock during the operation of the combine. Thus, you can get information in time about where the potatoes can be damaged, and make adjustments to the harvesting process.
By the way, at the stage of cleaning, just like at all other stages, the farm undergoes a rigorous quality audit, which includes all aspects of production, including compliance with environmental requirements.
“In addition to management control, there is also control exercised by the agricultural team. A good leader only welcomes additional control, ”says Belyaev.
Further, the potatoes enter the receiving hopper, their further separation takes place, after which they are manually cleared of the ground and enters the potato storage. The storage volume is 7,5 thousand tons of one-time storage. This is one of the most technologically advanced storage facilities in the world, a kind of symbiosis - all advanced technologies existing in the world were taken into account in its design. It is also equipped with a special automatic ventilation system that ensures optimal storage conditions. You can manage the storage, monitor and make any settings from any gadget.
The Lam Weston Belaya Dacha plant near Lipetsk works with farms from 25 regions of Russia and processes 220 thousand tons of raw materials per season.
According to the plant manager Aleksey Fedotov, the potatoes grown at the plant undergo a large number of processing and sorting stages. The plant is about a kilometer long and is almost completely automated - each shift is managed by up to 20 people. It also carries out quality checks on products, including by the McDonald's Munich Quality Center. As a result, this is the only product in Russia that is certified for compliance with the Gold Standard.
Alexander Merkulov, consultant of the quality control department, spoke about how french fries are prepared directly in the restaurant. According to him, potatoes come to the kitchen frozen. This is done to maintain the quality of the product. It remains in this form until the moment it is cooked. The potatoes are fed into an automatic dispenser, which is also a freezer. A mixture of two types of sunflower oil is used as a frying oil. A number of procedures are also used to ensure the quality of this mixture, including testing with special strips for the content of free fatty acids.
According to pre-programmed conditions, the potatoes are fried for three minutes at a temperature of 168 degrees. A special warm microclimate is created in the packaging area, which is provided by incandescent lamps, which does not allow the potatoes to cool down before being handed over to the buyer. Here, hot fries are packaged in three different serving sizes.
A prerequisite is that the managers themselves from time to time try the product that is offered to guests. This approach is paying off: every day, about 600 servings of French fries are sold in the McDonald's restaurant chain in Russia.