Prices of young potatoes on the Polish market in a typical May trend

Last week was characterised by a strong dynamics of changes in wholesale prices of domestic early potatoes in Poland. Despite the fact that we are still in the early phase of the season and the supply of new potatoes from domestic crops remains rather limited.

At the moment, wholesale prices of new potatoes (still under high cover) are usually between 3.00-5.00 PLN/kg, but we should bear in mind the strong geographical variation - the season starts later in the north of the country and prices are still higher there. In any case, last week saw a 38.5% fall in the price of early domestic potatoes.

That's a lot, but is such a trend unusual at this stage of the season? Apparently not. The end of May is a period when the supply of new potatoes is increasing and these are still very delicate goods to sell immediately. This creates strong pressure on daily prices. A year ago, in the same period, we had a price fall of 37 per cent.

So the trend is typical, but we have to keep in mind that the market is different from last year because costs have increased drastically. Prices are at last year's level, and logically they should be noticeably higher. And this is a cause for concern for producers.

Admittedly, we can now expect a certain slowdown in early potato price falls - firstly because of the weather, and secondly because some imports (from more distant countries) are disappearing from the market. Nevertheless, in June, especially if the weather is good, the downward trend will be strong again. The question is how big will the scale of these reductions be this season?