The French stock figures for chips and table potatoes show that the country does not have an extremely low potato stock; the French fries factories in particular can still obtain raw materials in France. Is this the processors' secret to bridging the period until the new harvest?
At the start of March, the French potato growers' organization UNPT carried out a stock measurement among their members. This shows that 1,25 million tons of ware potatoes were in stock at that time. This is the lowest stock in 10 years.
High potato exports
The volume of table potatoes in particular is very low (at 370.000 tons), which has never happened before. The French potato harvest was also smaller last year, but with a decline of 7% it was not as disastrous as in the rest of the EU-5. Since France was the only one that had sufficient product (of good quality), a lot was exported. This volume is 10% higher, which is clearly reflected in the stock figures.
According to the most current export figures, up to February 1, more than 12 million tons of potatoes have been exported in the past 2 months. That is an increase of 14% compared to the previous period, which is good for 250.000 tons. After Spain, Belgium is the largest customer with a share of 10% (205.500 tons).
More fries potatoes
The stock of French fries potatoes, on the other hand, is not extremely low: 885.000 tons. In the 2012/2013 and 2016/2017 seasons, this volume was even lower on March 1, with a low of 850.000 tons. However, the difference with the abundant harvest of 2017 is large, which amounts to 234.000 tons.
While the table potato market has benefited from high demand and high export prices, things have been different for chip potatoes. The processors have been working on potatoes from the old harvest for a long time and at the start of the new season they first processed many of the alternative varieties and problem lots. The Belgian factories in particular have purchased free potatoes in France.
Not much to sell freely
The volume of consignments that can be sold freely is very small; with table varieties, but especially with chip potatoes. Processors wait as long as possible before collecting high-quality consignments. For the small remainder of free product, French growers use the strategy 'la mort ou le glaïeul' (death or the gladioli). They hope to benefit from a price peak in the next 3 months.