Potatoes - growing pressure on prices in Poland

In January, Poland received a real winter with temperatures below -10 degrees Celsius. But this did not affect the rising prices of domestic potatoes. They remained stable. Now it's warmer - the daytime temperature is hovering around zero degrees and synoptics are forecasting further warming.

Under these conditions we can expect increased pressure on potato prices. Demand is still limited and imports are likely to increase, as producers and traders in Western Europe, where there are too many potatoes, are frantically looking for storage space. Poland has been one of these places for years and unfortunately some of these imports still end up on the retail market, repackaged as Polish goods.

Potato prices have already fallen and today the prices for 45+ calibre yellow varieties on the wholesale market are usually between 0.23-0.37 PLN/kg, depending on variety, region and quality. Asking prices are sometimes higher, but transactions are rarely above 0.40 PLN/kg. As can be seen below, the average price for such potatoes at the large wholesaler is higher than only two prices from the same period in the twelve previous seasons.