Swiss potato branch: re-export after processing increasingly important

In the past year the passive and active processing traffic of potatoes in Switzerland has increased strongly, reports the Swiss website Bauernzeitung.ch. The potato warehouses were less full than in previous years.

The active processing traffic, in which wares are imported to Switzerland and then exported again, increased by 130 percent in amount and 26 percent in value over the last year. It was mainly semi-finished products and unprocessed potatoes that were imported, and they were mainly exported as conserve products and crisps. For the passive processing traffic, in which Swiss wares are supplied abroad, are processed there and then imported again, 2,330 tonnes of unprocessed potatoes were processed over the last year (2012: 998 tonnes).

In October of last year there was five percent less potatoes in storage, in total, than the average amount over the last six years. The stock of processing potatoes was around 27 percent smaller than in the previous year and the stock of consumption potatoes was around 24 percent smaller.