Famous Brands and South Africa's industry body for potatoes have said the country will have enough supply and raw materials to produce slap chips, despite claims that there may be a looming shortage.
Famous Brands, which owns various fast food and restaurant brands, like Steers, Mugg & Bean, and Wimpy, said South Africa currently has a slight oversupply of potatoes, which bodes well for potato chips availability.
"There is a slight oversupply of potatoes in the SA market for the next 12 month's forecast, and furthermore, there is chip production capacity available," Andrew Mundell, group executive for business development at Famous Brands, told Business Insider South Africa.
Mundell, who also sits on the potato forum of South Africa, said demand from chip manufacturers would be met, based on the supply of potatoes.
"There is capacity in the manufacturing space in terms of the factories, [they] have enough capacity to produce it," Mundell said.
CEO of Potatoes SA, Willie Jacobs, said he does not expect a shortage.
Hume International, a local import-export business, warned of a potential shortage of frozen chips. It said the newly imposed import duties might cause European frozen chip producers to ditch South Africa as an export destination and threaten supplies as they look for alternative markets.
In July, South Africa's International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) imposed heavy import tariffs to protect the local potato industry against dumping by European suppliers. It introduced duties on frozen chips of up to 23% for Belgium, 104% for the Netherlands, and 181% for German suppliers.
But, without tariffs, the impact on South Africa's potato industry would be massive.
"Before the duties were put in place, certain big importers were importing because it is cheaper, the European market is so big that when they have an oversupply, they actually almost give away the product," he said.
"The total South African market consumption is 4% of the total European market; the impact of not having duties is massive," said Mundell.