Trade remains promising for the retail sector and home consumption appears to have stabilised at a higher level for recent weeks. It has been an early harvest and a lot of growers are now wrapped up on lifting or almost complete, which is welcome. Once again there are reports of quality issues on early planted main crop material.
Across Europe, lifting is almost complete with “several” growers having to rely on temporary storage to clear land and in extreme cases crop is being left in the ground waiting for space to become available. Following the difficult conditions earlier, there are concerns about how factories will interpret their quality specs. Rejection rates are currently “alarming” in some French fry factories and buyers of Innovator have had to start looking to the free market for suitable supplies for cover.
