After a very wet and delayed harvest in Northern Europe, an increasing supply has begun to enter the market as growers look to move late harvested potatoes which were left in saturated ground for extended periods.
The influx of these lower quality potatoes, which are being sold directly from field to processor, has limited upward movements in the market with the Mintec Benchmark Prices for Dutch processing Potatoes [Mintec Code: PO29] assessed at €207.50/mt on 12 December, unchanged week-on-week (w-o-w).
The worst affected regions have been the Netherlands and Belgium with the NEPG stating that 15% and 11% of the Dutch and Belgian crops were still in the ground on 24th November. Although the harvest has continued market sources have commented that with the wet weather forecast in December, they expect a proportion of the remaining crop to be abandoned.
Looking forward market participants described the stable market as “temporary” and expected prices to rise once processors have utilised the late harvested crop. With a higher than normal proportion of the crop having to be processed early in the season market participants expect free-buy availability to be tight for the remainder of the season.