Kartoffeln News, 12/01/2023

The clearing work in Belgium continued over the course of the week. But the harvesting machines are still not making rapid progress. The situation remains difficult, particularly in the western growing regions of Belgium. The industry association Fiwap assumes that 11 percent of the areas have not yet been harvested and also reports that the tubers that were recently recovered are hardly storable and have major quality problems. The majority of the industry is preparing for major losses. New figures from the NEPG also indicate that there are still many tubers in the ground. The European Growers Association assumes that as of November 23rd. Around 1.4 million tons of potatoes were still in the ground in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Belgapom's quotations remained unchanged. Weak qualities are definitely entering the market, and overall demand from the processing industry has calmed down somewhat. Reka is leaving its prices unchanged today. Nevertheless, wholesale prices for processing potatoes appear to be increasing somewhat. In Germany, most areas have now been cleared and so the harvest is considered to be largely complete.Producers are currently holding back good lots, but overall demand is still manageable, as many factories in this country can largely utilize their production capacity with the contracted quantities. Prices in France are also unchanged. The quantities traded are mostly limited to excess quantities from contract cultivation. The food market appears unchanged at the weekend. The national average prices rose slightly, but in the large producing regions prices were recently at the previous week's level.