French fry industry has more potatoes on contract

The industry is currently not a buyer of free potatoes. The capacity in the factory has been slightly tempered because the demand for fries is also somewhat lower. At the beginning of the contract period, the industry aimed for a further expansion of the acreage of potatoes that it wanted to have grown on contract. Only when signals from the fries sales turned red did it abruptly stop issuing contracts. All in all, it seems that somewhat more acreage has been set aside. Less than initially planned, but still more than previous years. In particular, in Belgium, there was an emphasis on expansion, but also in the Netherlands, processors have somewhat more on contract. All this explains why the industry currently has no need for free potatoes. It's also a simple calculation. If normally 80% is grown on contract, you still need 20% free potatoes. If capacity is slightly reduced, to say 90%, then you need even less potatoes. The result of this is that the share of contract cultivation, based on the situation in previous years, already rises to 89%. If the industry also has somewhat more on contract than in previous years, this percentage increases to well above 90%, which explains why they are currently not buyers of free potatoes. High yields Additionally, the yields in processing are at an exceptionally high level. Higher than expected as well. Even in the early potatoes, the specific weights were very good and the rejection rates remained particularly low. Therefore, the processing yield rose in August to just above 58%, as can be calculated from figures from the industry organization of the processing industry (Vavi). This yield is 2 percentage points above the five-year average. Ultimately, processing in August was 4.8% smaller than a year ago. That is just a small reduction, considering the particularly poor mood in the market. Due to the extremely good yields in processing, the decline in the final consumption products is still much smaller at about 2.5%.