The supply of conventional potatoes from PEI is good. “Between PEI and Ontario East and New Brunswick, there’s enough inventories on hand to get us through our normal time frames of late June to the middle of July. The same would be said of the processing industry as well,” says Dwayne Coffin of Vanco Produce Ltd.
PEI had an average yield for this 2023-2024 crop though as of January 1st, holdings inventory for the province compared to a year ago is down about 11 percent. New Brunswick is down about 18 percent. “The bigger issue is because there were so many U.S. potatoes, our movement in December was down compared to last year as well,” says Coffin. "The Christmas business just wasn’t as busy as we had expected it to be compared to other years so it balances out a bit.”
Indeed there looks to be ample potato supply right now in the Western U.S. and Western Canada. “They had big yields and they have they still have a lot of extra inventory on hand,” Coffin adds.
2024 start
January also saw a slower start in terms of movement which again could be attributed to the slower December movement and the clearing out of inventories in distribution centers. Typically after big holidays, it takes a week or two to clean up inventories on hand. At the same time, another factor could be the ease at which to buy potatoes these days. “It’s easy for some big buyers to transition to where they want to buy potatoes now compared to 25 years ago. If they’re buying a specialty item in PEI, they can easily convert and move to central U.S. or western Canada to meet their needs. That’s the big difference in the potato industry today,” says Coffin.
As for pricing, it hasn’t been under the pressure that was anticipated and prices have been decent. However, it's different on high-volume items such as Russets. “Items like that are seeing a lot of pricing pressure because it’s quite easy for any major area to pack those up and move volumes of them, whether it’s from Idaho or Eastern Canada,” says Coffin. Still, some specialty items have seen prices hold such as foodservice boxes. “The big reason for that is the exchange rate. Our exchange rate shipping into the U.S. is high or slightly higher than a year ago. It’s made Canadian potatoes attractive to buy. That’s been a huge benefit to holding our pricing as well.” He adds that shipping costs have also come back to pre-pandemic levels which has helped stabilize prices.
Movement to stay steady?
Looking ahead, not much change is anticipated. “It will be interesting to see what happens come April-May when potatoes typically start to wake up a little bit,” says Coffin, noting at that point, many Russet varieties will be gassed and that should hold well until May-June. “However...will there be enough inventory moved to get those regions into a comfortable position? It’s still too early to see if that will be the case.”
An early Easter in 2024 will also drive potato sales. “The economy and the weather have been big factors here recently,” Coffin says. “There has been some severe weather that’s impacted some regions that would be shipping potatoes. They may have been affected. Overall though, the economy is having more of an impact on potato sales. Consumers are looking around for the best price and shopping at other stores with sales.”
For more information:
Dwayne Coffin
Vanco Produce Ltd.
Tel: +1 (902) 651-2005
[email protected]
www.vancofarms.com