German retail slowly switches to new potatoes

Changing to new potato assortment is going quite slowly at the moment in the German food trade. There is only one German discounter at which foreign products that came from storage have no longer been taken into the assortment since last week. Mainly supermarkets with a complete assortment still offer German potatoes in large amounts from the cooling houses. On the one hand these potatoes are qualitatively much better than anyone thought a few weeks ago. On the other hand importers don't supply the whole spectrum of potato varieties and cooking types, which there is demand for. The discounters have partially switched to French wares, but will remain supplying German wares too until mid May (week 20) in many regions.

Suppliers of early potatoes in previous years were nervous due to the fact that the German food trade preferred potatoes from their own country. But this year they once again demand unchanged prices and seem to wait patiently for their turn. In Israel's case not many potatoes from this country have yet arrived on the German market. Shipments from Egypt aren't as widespread amongst suppliers as in 2011. The Spanish early potatoes will also be late on the market this year.