Due to the limited supply of free-buy potatoes, purchasers are finding it difficult to get stockpiles as potato prices in the UK continue to rise. The English white packing potato Mintec Benchmark Prices were last evaluated at GBP330/mt, a rise of 65% year-over-year (y-o-y) and 43.4% month-over-month (m-o-m).

English Maris Piper prices also demonstrated significant gains, rising 13.5% year-over-year and 12.6% month-over-month to GBP400/mt at the time of the assessment.

Throughout the harvest season, weather-related problems have contributed to a scarcity of supplies by increasing the amount of rots and other quality problems caused by excessive rainfall. The fact that many growers had postponed crop lifting in an attempt to increase yields after delaying plantings at the beginning of the season further exacerbated the unfavorable conditions. As a result, when bad weather started, a larger percentage of the crop was still in the ground.

“We are seeing increased levels of rot from crops which have been stuck in wet soils. I managed to move some Saxon which had only been in store a couple of weeks and around 30% was rot. Loss during storage is going to be a major issue this year” a UK potato trader told Mintec.

The potato growers are worried about their capacity to fulfill pre-arranged contracts for the 2023–2024 season as a result of the quality challenges. The farmers have restrained sales until they are convinced they can achieve contracted levels, which has resulted in little trading activity in the free market. Growers who can fulfill their obligations, however, are hesitant to sell extra stock because they hope for greater prices later in the season.

“It has been very hard to get offers on good quality packing potatoes as most growers aren’t willing to engage until they can see how bad the situation is. Supplies seem particularly tight for Maris Piper, King Edwards and good quality reds,” a buyer for a UK packhouse said.

There have been indications of an increase in producers trying to shift inventory that shouldn’t be kept in storage for an extended period. As a result, some in the market have speculated that until this backlog is resolved, lower-quality potato prices will face pressure.

“With the increased prevalence of rots and other issues from the wet conditions we have seen in the past few months, we are seeing a fair amount of material coming out of stores before it deteriorates. Good quality is still very hard to come by and looking into 2024 this issue is only going to get worse given how bad storage issues are already looking,” a UK packhouse manager disclosed to Mintec.