What has been coming for a while on the potato market has happened in recent days. Midway through week 39, the futures quote of the April 2022 contract has broken the level of €20,00. This was accompanied by a relatively large number of contracts.
There was initially little supply above the level of €20,00, so that there was already trading at €1 on Friday, October 20,50. The closing score of the week was €20,40. It is striking that the breakthrough through the €20,00 ceiling did not result in a drop in the price.
Normally you see this happen in a market when a certain barrier is overcome, back to, for example, €19,60 to €19,70. This decline did not occur, which may lead to the conclusion that the current price level is not seen as truly spectacular by the interested market parties. A frequently heard comment is that a market price of around €25,00 for the April 2022 contract should be perfectly feasible.
Market price above €20 is declared
The question remains whether it will turn out that way. In any case, the expectation is that it will, now that harvesting has picked up steam and the harvest is generally experienced as less than normal. Add to this the shrinkage of the area in the EU-4 countries, as well as the problems with quality (especially hollow in Fontane and Agria), which is at the expense of the efficiency in the factory. The idea that a market price above the €20,00 level should be achievable without much struggle in the first half of 2022 is thus explained.
However, little change has been seen in the physical daily market, as evidenced by the various stock exchange listings in the EU-4 countries and also the overview on the PAT. The supply apparently still remains sufficient, causing the market price to remain between €12,00 and €14,00 per 100 kilos. The futures market for the November 2021 quotation shows that the market can make a significant jump within now and at the beginning of December. It closed on Friday October 1 at €15,50.
Division in the potato market
In principle, there is a clear division in the potato market. The difficult current day market and the expectant market for the storage season. We will know more in the coming months, but a more or less exciting period certainly lies ahead.