Anyone who would have said a few weeks ago that the potato market would fall below €20 would have been declared crazy, let alone that the market would fall back to €10. And yet the unthinkable has happened. Viaverda/Fiwap quoted €23 to €10 (- €12,50 in two weeks) for Fontane and Challenger on Wednesday 4,25 April, with the comment that the mood is 'Calm' and that there is sufficient (read: too much) supply.
From the processors' corner, it is deafeningly quiet. What has happened and what will happen to the potato market that has shown an average of €35 per 100 kilos for two seasons in a row around this time of year? Apparently, there has been a development, and it may still be ongoing, that is difficult to observe for stakeholders in the potato market.
Great need for raw material
French fries potatoes are grown and delivered or stored to be delivered later in a black box (read: factory), the end product is then sold worldwide. The sales of end products have gone through the roof in recent years, one French fry line or factory had not yet been built or another was already in development. Furthermore, there was also an enormous need for raw materials to keep the French fry lines running in order to meet the hunger for end products. Until a few weeks ago.
The cooling of the end product market has been going on for a while, but the signals were somewhat ignored. After all, there was no way to switch up and the stock of potatoes was known. Now that the emergency brake has been pulled hard, almost all French fry processors in Europe no longer want to buy potatoes. First collect the expensive contracted potatoes and stay away from the remainder as much as possible (joint delivery and/or free product) with the result of an imploding market price.
Transition to new season under pressure
It seems clear that the current situation in the market does not help the transition to the new season (2025/26). The choice, considering the area for the 2025 harvest year, was made at a time when the potato market was still looking up and processors were encouraging growers to grow more area by offering good conditions. Although the area in France seems to have been scaled down somewhat in time, the EU-4 area will increase by at least 5%. In a normal growing season, the prospects for the 2025 harvest year are not very positive. However, the fact is not so much the area and the growing season - although that does partly determine the mood - but more the erratic course of the global sales of end products. It is apparently difficult to control the sales of fries, which ultimately also affects the grower and may continue to affect the 2026 harvest year. And as an insider puts it: "We are back to square one, but we don't know yet."