The Europatat’s Annual Assembly has been held on 29 and 30 May in Dublin, at which a new strategic plan for the triennial 2022-2025 was approved and the Tigran Richter (DKHV) was elected as the new president.

The strategy for 2022 to 2025 that Europatat will follow will be based on several pillars. The first one is the development of the partnership and members, the second is interlocution, the third is information and communication, and the fourth is Rules & Practices of the Inter-European Trade in Potatoes (RUCIP).

“As for the appointments, together with the president, the new board of directors was chosen. The new president, Tigran Richter, replaces Gilles Fontaine (Desmazières), who has led Europatat for the past four years. Heero Gramsma (Luonnosta) has also been re-elected as treasurer until 2026 and Domenico Citterio (Fruitimprese) remains as vice president until 2024,” according to Fepex.

During the meeting, which was face-to-face, after two years, and in which Federación Española de Asociaciones de Productores Exportadores de Frutas y Hortalizas (FEPEX) intervened, meetings of the Europatat commissions around which this entity is organized also took place: early potato, seed potato, consumer potato and packers, the commission on related technical and regulatory matters and the RUCIP Commission, code that includes the rules and Uses of intra-European Trade in Potatoes and whose objective is to speed up the resolution of commercial conflicts in the potato sector.

The RUCIP code encompasses a series of standards drafted by experts in the sector and through which frequent problems such as non-compliance with the contracted quality, non-delivery, non-payment, etc. are solved.

In the commissions of early potato and potato consumption and packers, the main data of surface and production in the different countries were exposed, as well as the consumption in practically all the countries are in decline. On the other hand, the requirements required by the distribution (the different labels that are required in the field, in the warehouse, and origin labeling) were also analyzed.

In the RUCIP Commission, it was reported that work is being done on the revision of these standards, for which a working group was constituted, anticipating that the new version will be finalized by the end of this year.

European Potato Trade Association (Europatat) brings together national associations and companies involved in the trade-in of seed potatoes and consumer potatoes from all over Europe.