Thanks to hurricanes and storms seen last fall throughout key sweet potato growing regions such as North Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana, supplies of sweet potatoes across the board continue to be tight.
“We do have stock and we’re able to cover all of our current customers,” says Tami Long of Nash Produce based in Nashville, NC. “But as a result, if new business shows up, we’re taking a hard look at it.”
Long notes that growers anticipated 2018 would have lower volumes of sweet potatoes before the storms even landed. “Many farmers didn’t plant because they weren’t making money on the extremely low prices,” says Long, who adds that interestingly, the quality of the potatoes that made it through is very good. “So we already knew we were coming into a shortage and then the hurricanes hit.”
Solid demand
At the same time, demand is still strong for sweet potatoes. And while the cold fronts and storms that were seen throughout February across much of the North American East Coast and Midwest didn’t affect demand for the commodity, it did factor into transportation. “We did have problems with just the weather and trucks getting to destinations,” says Long.
And while a strong interest in healthy eating continues to fuel demand in sweet potatoes, so do the innovations that the industry continues to come up with. At Nash, its most recent product development is a three and four-tray pack of microwavable sweet potatoes that can be placed directly into a microwave, complete with the packaging. “The packaging is biodegradable and the tray is cool when you pull it out of the microwave,” says Long. “The plastic steams the potatoes too which brings out the sweetness in them differently.” For now, Nash is introducing the product via trade shows.
Pricing climb
Meanwhile strong demand and limited supplies mean that pricing has been climbing up monthly, though she notes the impact on consumers will be minimal. “The prices are slowly increasing to back to where they need to be,” says Long.
And looking ahead, planting for the 2019 crop is just beginning. “Once that’s done, we’ll get a better feel for what we’re looking at for next year,” adds Long.
For more information:
Tami Long
Nash Produce
Tel: +1-252-443-6011 x231
tamilong@nashproduce.com
www.nashproduce.com