Potato Review

‘Bin buster’ saved by higher temperatures Potato crop quality for Bushmans’ Inc in Wisconsin has astounded the company’s CEO who believed the crop was going to be “a bin buster” Higher temperatures in early August have saved the day, says Michael Carter. In early August the temperatures in Wisconsin reached 86 deg F. The COVID-19 crisis and its impact on restaurants and other food outlets made it di‰cult to judge what the market would be for fresh market potatoes. Retail compensated for lost foodservice sales, but Michael says a second wave of coronavirus would have a further impact on potato markets. Bushmans’ has made minor operational adjustments for COVID-19 health precautions this year to date but said it hadn’t drastically aŽected production or sales. www.potatoreview.com POTATO REVIEW NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 39 INTERNATIONAL NEWS NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE Montana keeps storing and hoping GROWERS in Montana had been storing crops, hoping for a better market. Bars, restaurants, schools and cafeterias closed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to frozen french fries stacking up in freezers and loading docks and processors cancelling orders from growers. A few months ago, millions of pounds of potatoes across Montana were either buried or donated, according to the Montana Department of Agriculture. Streich Farms, one of the regions’s large suppliers sat on 10 million pounds of potatoes that were planted last May, which will be stored until next spring when they are normally sold to potato farmers in Washington. More households are purchasing, says report FRESH potato sales and the number of households buying potatoes increased significantly from July 2019 to June 2020, according to Potatoes USA. As the marketing organisation for the 2,500 commercial potato growers operating in the United States, Potatoes USA promotes five main potato products: Fresh table- stock potatoes, fresh chipping potatoes, seed potatoes, frozen potato products, and dehydrated potato products. It revealed that 88% of households purchased potatoes on an average of 10 times during the 52-week period. This was a significant increase for fresh potatoes, which are already a staple item in households. In 2019, consumers purchased fresh potatoes, on average, seven times in 83% of households. Potatoes continued to be bought most often with bread, milk, eggs, onions, and other staple household items. However, consumers increased their basket sizes all around the store, including baskets with fresh potatoes. Prices sliding down in North America AS potato growing regions came into production across North America, the formerly high-demand, higher-priced market has been changing, according to a report from online outlet Fresh Plaza. Ken Gad of South Easton, MA-based Cambridge Farms Inc said there has been a delay in finishing up Eastern Shore product and there are a lot of potatoes left in Delaware to go through, noting that regions such as Long Island, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska, Colorado, Washington, Ontario and Quebec are all about to begin or have begun already. While overall volume is anticipated to be similar to last year, some regions have been dealing with dry conditions which may aŽect size. “On the East Coast, it’s been so dry. The main crop right now, the quality is good but the solid content has got to be up because it’s been so dry,” says Gad. “Some areas will have size issues.” All of these growing areas are coming into a system that has seen steady demand for potatoes, particularly since the pandemic caused the North American lockdown near the end of March. “When it hit, we were at the ends of our crop and getting ready to start summer production,” says Gad. “It’s not like we had all this summer storage crop that we had to get rid of.” At the same time, thanks to the closures in foodservice, demand for processing potatoes to make restaurant staples such as French Fries also dropped. “And some processors started giving back contracts. They tried putting product on the open market and a lot of it wasn’t suitable for open market use. That flooded it a little bit and aŽected consumer bag prices,” says Gad. But then that changed again as the U.S. and Canada started reopening and restaurants figured out new ways of doing business if they weren’t going to fully reopen—such as oŽering curbside pick up, etc. “And then processors started taking back the product because restaurants were reopening,” says Gad. “It created a seesaw in the Russet market.” While Russet FOB prices were prices growers hadn’t seen in a long time, they weren’t the only variety seeing higher pricing. Red potatoes for example, which had been tight in availability, went into the Florida season with historically high prices. Red potatoes were $30 three weeks ago but are now under $20. Yellow potatoes which were $40-$50 are now also under $30. It is anticipated that by October when all regions are deep into harvest, prices could be down again by as much as 15%.