The home consumption and retail sales of potatoes are improving, as normal routines resume in households following the return of schools. Early Rooster is continuing to come onto the market. There are reports of some quality issues such as cracking, possibly due to dry weather conditions during the summer, it is too early to determine the extent of this.
Across Europe, trading remains very difficult as factories restrict their purchases solely to contracts. Early crop is still being cleared and the first maincrop have also been lifted. Crops have senesced rapidly following the recent run of high temperatures and lack of rainfall and in many areas irrigation will be required to reduce damage at lifting. In the U.K. it appears that yields are very much based on the “water the crop has received”.
