Difficult premiere potato market expected

Although the quality of the still stored potatoes is mediocre, the sales of early potatoes this year will clearly be more difficult than last year. The number of early potatoes from import countries, however, will continue to decrease, which means regional ware will profit. This was reported by Ferdi Buffen, potato expert of the German RWZ-Gruppe recently about the developments on the potato market. He did this during the IGE potato trade day in the Austrian Hausleiten.

There's not much perspective for higher prices for the rest of the harvest from 2011, according to experts, as there are more and more excessively large potatoes, potatoes of lesser quality and seedlings on the market. In the EU-15 the highest potato yield since 2000 was harvested, with over 46 million tonnes. "The potato growers can feel it in their wallet every day", says Buffen. Belgian growers are receiving only 2 to 4 Euro per 100 kg for their potatoes.

The potato expert calculates that there will be a loss of cultivation area of 3 to 5%. In the EU-15 countries the potato cultivation area has been developing negatively in the past ten years. In 2011 there was a change in the tendency for the first time and the area increased. Decisive for the price changes is the harvest in the five big potato countries Germany, Holland, Belgium, France and Great-Britain. Belgium and France are the largest potato growers in the EU at the moment. In Belgium the area is increasing, by 9.5% last year. They invested in large production installations recently.

The European processing industry increased by 5% last year. This corresponds with 500,000 tonnes of potatoes. Chips, flakes, granules and starch is produced for potatoes in record speed. The market for these products is mainly growing in Asia and South-America. It's very lucrative at the moment to export chips from Antwerp or Rotterdam to South-America by ship. In China a new McDonalds shop and three new Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants are opened, "We'll profit from this trend for a few years!", according to Buffen.