Potato imports to US continue to rise

Strong demand for potatoes and potato products and tight domestic supplies continues to drive increases in imports for the current (July 2020-June 2021) marketing year.

For the nine-month period of July through March, total imports were up 9%, led by an 18% increase in chips and a 15% increase in dehydrated potatoes. The two largest categories frozen and fresh potatoes are were 9% and 5% respectively, while seed potato imports were up 14%.

Frozen product from Canada, the largest importer of potatoes to the U.S. with an 86% market share, was up 8%.

Imports from European Union (EU) were up 10%. Within the EU, Belgium imports were up 19%, Germany was up 18% and The Netherlands up 2%. France and Italy were up 131% and 79%, respectively.

The product from the EU is mainly made up of specialty frozen potato products sold at retail plus very low-end product sold to small scale restaurants. This can be seen in the difference in the value per metric ton between Canada $1030 and the EU $874.

— Potatoes USA