Albert Wada is one of America’s potato kings. Farming 12,000 acres of land in Idaho, the state that produces a third of America’s spuds, Mr Wada is one of the biggest potato farmers in the United States. He bought the business in 1972 from his father, who immigrated to the US from Japan.
By his own admission, it is the shift in diet of some of Mr Wada’s distant relatives in Japan that has seen his Idaho crops benefit from a rise in price over the past 18 months.
Japan and China are driving an increase in demand for processed potato, frozen french fries. “The fast food craze in China and Japan accounts for the largest percentage of the increase in the price for processed potato. The French fries potato market has reversed a downward trend for potatoes – it’s not a huge increase, but it is a rebound.”
