Estimation of potato loss in the production and processing stages of potato chips in Egypt

Potato crop is considered one of the important vegetable crops in Egypt as it is one of the foods and manufacturing crop used as basic material for some of food industries. The processed potatoes are also characterized as being of added value and have a great demand in the market compared to fresh potatoes, especially that the consumption of these products in the Egyptian market is increasing, which is reflected in improving the income of the farmer, raising his standard of living, and protecting the farmers from fluctuations in market prices. The problem of the study is that most of the potato manufacturers don’t not know the places of waste in the different stages of manufacturing potato chips, and the low efficiency of raw material production as a result of the high waste during the manufacturing process, so the study aims to analyze the places of waste of raw material during the manufacturing process and estimate the cost of ton of the final product. The results extract from the study, there are two types of losses during the manufacture of potato chips, loss in raw materials and loss in the final product. The loss in the raw material is represented in the waste of processing and receiving potatoes by 0.35%, peeling loss is about 1.16%, and the loss is in the trimming stage about 0.67%, and the percentage of losses in the stage of slicing potatoes is about 11.54%, moisture loss is 79%, and the loss in the final product is about 2.39%, the price of the raw material potato represents more than 65% of the cost of The final product, , the average total cost was estimated at 4,097,086 pounds / kg with variable costs amounting to 3,438,482 pounds / kg, and fixed costs amounting to 658604 pounds / kg, the relative importance of variable and fixed costs to the total cost was 83.9% and 16.1%, respectively. The cost of purchasing potatoes was the highest and amounted to 37.2% of the total cost. The cost of a ton of chips production was about 40,628 pounds/ton and per kilogram about 40.63 pounds/kg. The study recommended to move towards policies that support local industries, provide appropriate lending, stimulate the private sector and overcome all obstacles facing food industries, and recommended the government to invest in the field of agricultural industrialization.