Statistics Indicate That the UK's Potato Market Is Solid

Since there aren't many fields receiving irrigation this year, except for a handful in North Cambridge and Norfolk, this year’s potato harvest will have avoided the drought issues in 2022.

On the market, there is some demand for table potatoes, with washed product selling for up to GBP640/t delivered and others for GBP500/t. Potatoes are being purchased by processors for GBP450 to GBP480 per tonne, with bagged chipping material costing between GBP550 and GBP580.

For the chips market, some potatoes have reportedly arrived from Egypt, but this is likely to go rapidly as more information about the upcoming season becomes available. To give crops time to swell and finish size, some of the lifting in England has been postponed. Several are being re-exported from the UK to international markets on the continent. A sizeable amount of frozen French fries are arriving in ready-to-rip and tip packages. The UK has received about 840,000t this year at prices as high as GBP1100/t.

Although the majority of crops will already be bound by contracts signed earlier in the year, growers say that overall spot prices remain solid but unexceptional. The old crop appears to be in extremely short supply, which is helping to stabilize prices.

Nevertheless, as the majority of the UK's potatoes are lifted in the coming months, supply will grow, perhaps lowering prices.

“This may affect some farmers who have a volume to sell on the open market outside their contracted volumes. Yield reports suggest average crops overall with a range of performances across the country,” a recent The Scottish Farmer analysis shows.

According to Defra, the harvested area for 2022 was 115,000 hectares, and even with an average yield in 2023, this could still reduce overall production compared to 2022.

The timing of destruction before lifting will be crucial while harvesting to stop a second infection from spreading. Increased disease pressure was able to overwinter due to regrowth from crops left in the ground for an excessive amount of time in 2022, which impacted many potatoes in 2023.

The potato output figures for 2022–2023 that Defra released showed a 6.4% decrease from the year before with a total production of 4.8 million tonnes. Given that 2012's crop was adversely damaged by a very wet season, the crop harvested in 2022 will only be 139,000 tonnes more than that crop.