The supply of potatoes is looking very different than this time last year. “The harvest yields were good and the acres were up significantly so the total sacks available are up quite a bit,” said Ryan Wahlen of Pleasant Valley Potato. “I do think we’re still seeing the effects of the past in our current market. I don’t think it’s fully adjusted from the tight supply that we saw the past two years.”
While total shipments are up, Wahlen believes if the same pace is kept through the remainder of winter and into the spring, supply and demand should equal out in the summer months.
Demand outlook
“As you get deeper into the season, the pace of supply reduction always accelerates. For example, some storages might have quality issues that don’t allow them to be held until the end of the season, or some growers don’t have refrigerated storages that allow them to hold product long term so they’re forced to move their lots earlier in the year,” he said. That means by June-July, the supply could be less than expected given the heavier production this season. “We think it will be a lot tighter then. I don’t think potatoes will necessarily be hard to find, but they’ll be harder to come by then than they are now.”
That said, Wahlen believes demand is improving already in terms of shipments. “Supply was so limited over the past two years that restaurants or retailers had to look for alternatives to potatoes simply because there just wasn’t enough product to go around,” he says. “I think demand is returning because potatoes have been plentiful this year and they’re a value relative to other items that might be considered substitutes.”
As for potato pricing, Wahlen says it’s “much lower than at this time last season, but it’s been fairly stable since Thanksgiving.”
For more information:
Ryan Wahlen
Pleasant Valley Potato
Tel: +1 (208) 397-4194
[email protected]
http://www.pleasantvalleypotato.com/