Potato Market Update 21st August

Retail demand and home consumption will ramp up in the next two weeks as schools return after the summer break. Some more quantities of early season Rooster are coming available on the market. This supply along with Queens on the market is easing the pressure on supply of old season stocks.

In the U.K. crops have yields well to date but more questions will be asked of later planted crops, particularly of later maturing varieties such as Markies. Soils have become dry in the South and East and fields which were not in good condition when planted are now starting to show signs of stress.

Across Europe it is also reported that later planted crops still have a lot of catching up to do and the next five weeks will be very influential. In Holland some later plantings have not closed the ridges and are "flowering profusely".