Never before have so many frozen fries been exported worldwide in one year. This means that sales of potato products are back and the problems surrounding the corona crisis, logistics, the war in Ukraine and more have been left behind. This is evident from an analysis of the latest export figures.
The world's largest chip-producing countries collectively exported 30 million tonnes of frozen chips outside their local markets in the year to June 4,46. That is an increase of 3,4% compared to the previous period. Good for almost 150.000 tons more product. Belgium, China and Turkey showed the largest growth during this period, while the United States exported significantly less volume. European exporters sold a volume of 2,96 million tons to countries outside the EU. That is an increase of 4%. The US exported 1,03 million tons. Good for a 2% decrease.
France big winner
Belgium and the Netherlands, the two largest European chip exporters, saw their exported volumes increase by 6% and 3% in the 2022-2023 season. For France this was even more than 13%. Germany and Poland actually showed a decline.
The US is slowly losing control of the world market for fries. In the 2020-2021 season, it still controlled more than a quarter of world trade. In the past season that was still 23%. A repeatedly disappointing potato harvest in our own country is the biggest cause of this. This year the situation is different, as we mentioned earlier this analysis described.
China and Turkey
The exporting countries that play in the second division show even greater growth rates. They account for 462.000 on the world market, which is 13% more than the year before. Argentina is a big loser here because the export volume has decreased by more than a fifth. China and Turkey are the largest emerging players. Due to the sharply increased price level for fries, it is more interesting to source product from China in particular. The country saw its export volume more than double, to 66.315 tons. Exports also doubled in Turkey to 90.000 tons. This country has an important major customer gained: Russia.
On average, exports of frozen French fries worldwide have grown by just under 5% on an annual basis over the last ten years. It is visible that before the pandemic, exports grew faster (6,5%) than during and after the pandemic. The growth rate of the past export season is therefore not yet on the average line, but the demand for fries remains. It is remarkable that the enormous increase in the price of chips, to well over €1.000 per tonne, has not caused a large-scale drop in demand. The bottleneck is mainly the availability of potatoes in Europe and the US.
Potato the limiting factor
Without this limiting factor, the export market could probably have grown even further. The European potato harvest will probably only grow minimally compared to last season, even though the processing capacity is there. In the US it looks like almost 10% more potatoes are being harvested and in Canada that is 4%. This gives the North American countries a head start.