After being canceled last year due to the coronavirus, this year’s Growers Education Conference, sponsored by the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association and UW Extension, was successfully held at the Convention Center.Recommended Holiday Inn.

According to the organizers, visitor numbers among growers, processors, industry professionals and exhibitors have returned to pre-pandemic levels, with a series of informational sessions held over three days.

One of those sessions included an industry update from Blair Richardson, CEO of Potatoes USA.

Richardson began his presentation by noting that, in recent years, potato purchases in the food industry have often exceeded the amount consumers buy potatoes for home use. “When I was here two years ago, I expected this trend to never change, but I’ve learned not to use the word ‘never’ over the past two years,” he admits.

The potato industry, like much of the rest of the US economy, has changed dramatically over the past two years due to the coronavirus. “As with other grocery purchases, there has been a large shift in spending on potatoes from restaurants and other parts of the hospitality industry to home consumption,” he said.

During the peak of the pandemic, 55% of potatoes purchased were for household consumption and 45% for catering.

Rising demand

“Potatoes continue to be America’s favorite vegetable,” Richardson said. “It’s the number one side dish in restaurants. Consumption continues to grow.”

“Retail stores are still selling large quantities of potatoes, restaurants are buying again, but school purchases are still slowing down,” he added.

According to Richardson, current demand for potatoes exceeds existing supply, and US potato imports are up more than 130%.

“The European Union exports a lot of potatoes to the US — mostly frozen potatoes, which are sold at grocery stores in the eastern half of the US like Trader Joes and Aldi’s. We’re really trying to understand what’s going on here and why companies [của Mỹ] does not meet this requirement,” he admitted.

challenge in the supply chain

There have been many examples of potatoes running out of supermarkets lately. “Many of our customers across the country are contacting their suppliers and noticing a supply shortage,” reports Richardson. Many of these deficits are due to the effects of transportation.”

Richardson said US ports are not as efficient as other international ports. “Our ports are not as fast as ports in Europe and other countries,” he admitted. But even with the ports operating 24/7, we still don’t have time to get the product on the truck and out on the road.”

In the last two years, the trucking industry has experienced a shortage of drivers. According to the United Vegetable Growers Cooperative (UVGC), this has created stiff competition for fresh fruit and vegetable shippers to ship their perishable goods across the United States. And, as expected, has driven the cost of transporting agricultural products to record levels.

Adding to strained supply chains and driver shortages, America’s largest agricultural trading partner, Canada (the US exports 90% of Canada’s fruits and vegetables during the winter months), has issued regulations for a new vaccine for truckers, prompting massive protests by Canadian truckers.

The Canadian Trucking Association estimates that as many as 16,000 drivers may be unable to work because of these regulations.

All of this leads to an unfortunate truth: the negative impact on US producers.

Thinner profit margin

Making extremely thin margins is not a new phenomenon for growers. However, the sheer number of cost increases in the supply chain that growers will face this harvest – such as an increase in the minimum wage to $15/hour, overtime of 40 hours per week, all petroleum-related inputs including fertilizer, diesel fuel as well as health insurance – will be difficult.

Richardson advises all growers to be extremely diligent in all their farming activities.

“Efficiency on the farm will be more important than ever to achieve peak yields and superior quality and to keep up with rising costs,” he stressed. “But current issues with supply chain channels can take a long time to resolve.”

However, according to the UVGC, all basic farming methods to control costs are unlikely to be enough. “Growers must be able to offset some of the increased production and transport costs in order to provide consumers with the best and richest variety of vegetables.”