Price of new Chinese potatoes continues to fall

Many potato traders with stock in storage have grown worried about the condition of the Chinese potato market. The market is quite weak and the delivery speed has slowed down. The reasons for this development are as follows:

1. Demand: Many potatoes in storage have started to sprout or turn green. Traders are looking for a supply of top-quality potatoes, and this is the time of year when potatoes from Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan enter the Chinese market. Furthermore, this is the time of year when fresh, seasonal leaf vegetables enter the supermarkets. The price of leaf vegetables drops, and the price of potatoes follows because consumers will buy leaf vegetables if potatoes are too expensive. Demand for potatoes is therefore weak at the moment.


2. Supply: Potatoes from Xuecheng in Shandong have already entered the market. In half a month, potatoes from Tengzhou in Shandong and Weining in Guizhou will also enter the market in large volumes. The current volume of potatoes in warehouses is quite small, but the product quality is not great. In addition, the price of potatoes is still quite high as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Processing factories are not content with the current price, and traders are waiting to see how the market will develop. People are hesitant to sell, which slows the market down.

The supply volume of potatoes is now growing rapidly and buyers are looking for production areas to secure their supply for this season. The price of potatoes in storage is likely to fall. The problematic product quality of potatoes from storage will become more pressing when trade in fresh potatoes grows.

Traders with potatoes in warehouses in north China are unlikely to attract the attention of visiting traders who will travel to Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan where they can find fresh potatoes.

The potato market in north China will remain weak in the short term and the price of potatoes from storage is likely to fall even further in the coming week.