The Tour de France got an unusual addition to its portfolio of partners this week.<\/p>\n
McCain.<\/p>\n
The Canadian purveyor of frozen potato products announced Wednesday it will become \u201cofficial fries of the Tour de France\u201d for the next five years.<\/p>\n
This summer, McCain will place a \u201cflagship food truck\u201d in fan zones at the Barcelona grand d\u00e9part<\/em> and on stage 7 into Bordeaux as part of an \u201cambitious integrated marketing plan.\u201d<\/p>\n Sadly for spectators, the partnership doesn\u2019t seem to include a float in the caravan that rolls along distributing tat to expectant roadside fans.<\/p>\n The news may seem to butt up against the notion of the Tour as the celebration of sporting greatness, of elites at the top of the game.<\/p>\n But it makes a lot of sense, we guess.<\/p>\n According to the press release, \u201cfries have long been part of the shared rituals that surround live sport.\u201d<\/p>\n The partnership in fact marks McCain\u2019s return to the Tour de France having previously partnered with the race from 2014 to 2018.<\/p>\n Because who doesn\u2019t love some salty snacks while watching some mid-summer bike racing?<\/p>\n Personally speaking, we\u2019re more prone to a bag of pretzels while watching sports, but frozen fries will do as second-best.<\/p>\n The McCain collaboration is a timely reminder of the marketing power of the Tour de France.<\/p>\n What self-respecting brand \u2013 sports adjacent or not \u2013 doesn\u2019t want a slice of a historic event that draws millions of viewers across the world?<\/p>\n For example, race organizers ASO recently hailed French national rail network the SNCF as an \u201cofficial supplier\u201d of the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes.<\/p>\n This summer, the men\u2019s peloton will enjoy its own chartered TGV for the journey from the Alps to Paris after stage 20 ahead of the grand finale on the Champs-Elysees.<\/p>\n And, of course, dozens of candy and junk-food brands buy into low-key slots on the publicity caravan.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the next off-kilter but marketing-savvy brand that could hook up with Le Tour<\/em>?<\/p>\n The Katusha team famously signed up with a caviar supplier in 2015. Ever been tempted by a $200 tin of sturgeon roe while watching bike racing?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/tour-de-france-suprising-new-partner\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2274105893.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated June 3, 2026 05:58AM The Tour de France got an unusual addition to its portfolio of partners this week. McCain. The Canadian purveyor of frozen potato products announced Wednesday it will become \u201cofficial fries of the Tour de France\u201d for the next five years. This summer, McCain will place […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1970389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1970389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1970389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1970389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1970389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"McCain](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-458362637.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")