
GRAND FORKS — The Belgian potato processing company planning to build a facility in Grand Forks is a win for the city and state, said Gary Shields, executive director of the Northland Potato Growers Association.
Shields said potato growers young and old have expressed excitement over the news.
“We’re going to be getting acres back we’ve lost over the years due to drought and shifts in areas that receive product,” he said. “There will be shifts, but they’ll be good shifts, and there are always corrections in agriculture.”
Anytime an industry is growing, it creates opportunity, he said.
“It’s just a good economic piece that fits so well in the Grand Forks community,” he said.
On Friday, Jan. 10, Agristo, a family-owned company based in Belgium, and the City of Grand Forks announced the company’s intent to build a
$450 million potato processing facility
in the city. The Northland Potato Growers Association is acting as a liaison between Agristo and the state, Shields said, and will work with state officials to push the project ahead.
Producers have worked with Agristo over the last three years to see how European potato varieties grow in the area. Though Agristo did look into other locations, such as Wisconsin, it was this region’s soil that helped seal the deal, Shields said.
“Our soil is second to none, and I think what helped us bring it to the finish line is the nature of the soil and the folks that work with that soil, the farmers,” he said.
The culture and work ethic of North Dakotans also helped sell the state to Agristo, said Doug Goehring, agriculture commissioner of North Dakota.
“They feel confident and good about making the Grand Forks area their new home,” he said. “I believe it’ll be good for (the Red River Valley) and good for the growers, the state of North Dakota and the country.”
Agristo was founded in 1983 by childhood friends Antoon Wallays and Luc Raes, along with Antoon’s father, Etienne Wallays. It was originally called Agrigel and began as a vegetable processing factory, starting operations in June 1986, according to Agristo’s website. The company switched to processing potatoes into fries in September 1987. Agrigel was renamed Agristo in 1990, and now has branches in the Netherlands, France and India. The company is based in Weilsbeke, Belgium, and the founders’ children, Filip Wallays and Hannelore Raes, are its co-CEOs.
It’s not the first time in recent years a foreign-owned agricultural company has eyed Grand Forks. In 2021, the Chinese-tied Fufeng stirred controversy with its plans to build a large corn mill along the city’s north side. The city backed away from the project in
after the U.S. Air Force declared it a “significant threat to national security.”
Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, said Agristo won’t bring any security risks, and Goehring doesn’t foresee the company posing any issues. Shields noted he has seen out-of-state investments doing well in North Dakota — Cavendish Farms, a Canadian potato processing plant in Jamestown, for one.
He also doesn’t foresee Agristo competing with the J.R. Simplot potato processing plant, an anchor of Grand Forks’ agribusiness corridor since 1981, as the two focus on different industries. Simplot focuses on quick-serve retail, providing russet potatoes to restaurants like McDonald’s. Agristo instead uses yellow potatoes for retail, such as Walmart and Target.
Grand Forks Mayor Brandon Bochenski said Agristo will complement Simplot and bring back some of the acreage that has been lost over the last 30 years, complementing the potato industry as well. There may be some competition with the workforce, but that will also be among other food production companies, he said.
The city’s next steps are to set the stage for Agristo to complete its engineering, which will be dependent on what location the company chooses. Agristo is looking at the site of the formerly proposed Fufeng project (a nearly 340-acre site off of 27th Avenue North) and an area farther north near the future site of the Epitome Energy soybean crush plant, near the interchange of Interstate 29 and North Washington.
“Once they select their site, it’ll really come down to sort of looking at the path for infrastructure, if the infrastructure is already there, if we need to add anything, and that can help set our timelines,” Bochenski said. “The other piece is the state has some incentives that need to come through, so we’re really going to be tracking those and going to Bismarck as needed to try to help those get through.”