No-nonsense, no-frills potato news stories from around the world
Veg of Lund, parent company of Sweden’s DUG that is the maker of DUG potato milk, announced last week that the European Patent Office notified its intent to approve the company’s vegan potato emulsion patent. Veg of Lund’s says its comprehensive patent portfolio creates the conditions for the company to develop more product categories within new plant-based foods, such as ice cream and cream products as well as alternatives to red and white meat.
Potato Storage Insight’s latest bulletin has advice for dealing with the continuing battle against rising storage costs and a reminder of the forthcoming PSI Potato Store Managers’ Course which is attracting interest from across the country and overseas. The latest Synopsis bulletin’s technical insight feature has information on the effective use of plenums in box stores and the importance of them in optimising air flow to help get the best out of every kilowatt of energy expended over the storage period.
The production of potato waffles led Birds Eye to contact LIMAB UK in 2021, wanting to source a moisture and fat analyzer. NDC product specialist at LIMAB UK, Kevin Goodison suggested they use the InfraLab Food Analyzer. “The potato waffles are now the crispiest that they have ever been and are now Birds Eye’s star product,” says Nigel Jackson, Process Technologist at Birds Eye.
The PEI potato industry welcomed the final report of an International Advisory Panel (IAP) on Potato Wart that was presented to industry and government on January 16, 2023. The panel was convened by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in 2022. The PEI potato industry is pleased with the thoroughness of the panel report and the Panel’s key findings that “given the limited presence of the pathogen, the IAP considers most parts of PEI outside the Regulated Fields as a PFA (pest free area) for S. Endobioticum [fungus causing potato wart].”
The Potato Trials and Technology Transfer event will take place on Wednesday, 1st February. Host Scottish Agronomy Ltd says this event provides the company with an opportunity to update growers on new developments in potato production. “In-store energy costs, monitoring and actions for efficiency improvements” is one of several topics to be discussed during the meeting.
From January 24 – 26, Restrain will be exhibiting at the Manitoba Potato Production Days Conference & Trade Show in Canada. Restrain is a manufacturer and distributor of ethylene generators. Restrain generators control sprouting in post-harvest potatoes, in a more natural way than any other agri-chemical method. Restrain is a natural sprout inhibitor based on the natural gas ethylene.
A recent study of 1,500 patrons (consumers who eat out at restaurants) identified habits and opinions of restaurant patrons related to potatoes. An astounding 53% of consumers surveyed said they are willing to pay an average of $5.20 more for a main dish with potatoes than without them, regardless of the format. Over half of the patrons surveyed (60%) expect to see potatoes on menus, second only to beef.
Haith, a leading manufacturer of vegetable handling solutions in the UK, will be promoting its innovative mobile optical sorter at the Fruit Logistica event next month (8-10 February). The PRO-Sort optical sorter was developed by Haith in partnership with GRIMME UK and automates the removal of stone, clod and foreign debris from potatoes. Capable of handling up to 100 tonnes per hour with high levels of accuracy thanks to the integral TOMRA 3A optical sorter, the PRO-Sort is proving popular with growers faced with labour shortages.
crop.zone, the specialist company for herbicide-free haulm desiccation, continues to focus on new partnerships and cooperation. With Tobias Menne as a new member of the advisory board, the company has now gained an important expert in this field. Tobias Menne recently set-up the SmartFarming joint venture between BASF and BOSCH. He now contributes his extensive professional expertise to the crop.zone supervisory board.
In this Idaho Farm Bureau podcast, Steven Sherman, BioLogiQ’s CEO, shares details of BioLogiQ’s NuPlastiQ, a 100% natural material made from potato, corn and tapioca starches and naturally sourced glycerin, which, when processed, produces pellets that can be blended with existing plastics. These BioBlends help to create more sustainable plastic products.
Potato farmers in the northern parts of the country have suffered heavy crop losses due to ground frost owing to the fall in temperatures in the last week. In some fields, the damage has been between 30-40 per cent. For farmers who planted some of the late varieties, sown in late November or early December, the damage has been as high as 80 per cent of the crop.
The latest global potato statistics provided by the FAO via its FAOSTAT database were updated in December, 2022. We extracted this 2021 data as it relates to “total production” (in metric tonnes) and present the results for 100 potato producing countries in the table below (ranging from most to least). According to the FAO data, a total of 376 million tonnes of potatoes were produced world wide, with China (94 million tonnes) and India (54 million tonnes) the largest potato producing countries in 2021.
There are worrying signs that the UK’s farmers are starting to turn their backs on the potato, leading to predictions of higher prices and shortages for the British consumer, as Lucie Heath writes in this iNews report. Cedric Porter, managing editor of World Potato Markets, estimates there will be a 10 per cent reduction in the land being used to grow potatoes in 2023, which could lead to a 10 per cent reduction in the harvest.
Potato industry challenges posed by PCN and blackleg were among the topics discussed at the recent Cambridge University Potato Growers’ Association (CUPGRA) annual conference, as Ken Fletcher, editor at The Scottish Farmer reports in this news article. Scotland’s seed potato sector has an increasingly serious problem with the potato cyst nematode (PCN) species, globodera pallida, warned specialist potato agronomist, Eric Anderson, of Scottish Agronomy. Prof Ian Toth, of the James Hutton Institute, eld a workshop to discuss his latest research into Root damage by free living nematodes (FLN) as an important factor in blackleg infestation.
As of November 17, 2022, two additional points of entry were approved for fresh potato shipments to the full Mexican market, according to a Potatoes USA news release. Registered U.S. fresh potato exporters can now ship through Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa, Tamaulipas to the interior of Mexico. Both newly approved locations, located along the Mexico-Texas border, increase opportunity for U.S. exporters in the Midwest and the eastern United States.
The 2023 Ontario Potato Conference will be hosted on Thursday, March 2 by the Ontario Potato Board in the Delta Hotel & Conference Center, Guelph. The wide variety of topics to be addressed by speakers were selected from growers’ requests, according to the principal organizer of the Conference, Dr. Eugenia Banks.
Frito-Lay today announced the near completion of its Modesto, California, facility’s transformation into a first-of-its-kind showcase for sustainable manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution technologies. It is one of the largest Frito-Lay manufacturing facilities in the US, and is the first Frito-Lay facility to implement site-wide alternative fuel vehicles, on-site renewable energy generation, energy storage equipment and employee electric vehicle charging stations.
The local potato industry has assured South Africans that it would be able to meet local demand for French fries after heavy “anti-dumping” duties were imposed by the International Trade Administration Commission (Itac) in July last year on Belgium, German and Dutch suppliers. Potatoes SA acting marketing manager, Jaco Koekemoer, said the country has a sufficient supply of fresh potatoes, with forecasts looking promising over the next 12 months.
The last remaining granular nematicide for potato cyst nematode (PCN) control, Nemathorin (fosthiazate) faces an uncertain future on UK farms, as Mike Abram reports for Farmers Weekly. At the recent Cambridge University Potato Growers Research Association (Cupgra) conference, Scottish Agronomy’s senior potato agronomist Eric Anderson highlighted four areas where action is needed, or more research required.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has a new partner to improve the efficiency of seed potato production at the Starks Early Generation Seed Potato Farm in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. This fall, a group of four seed potato growers joined together into the Wisconsin Potato Coalition (WPC) to assume operations of planting, growing, and harvesting seed at the Starks Farm for crop year 2023 and beyond. The growers have decades of production and business experience between them.
The Simple Root has announced the launch of a range of “naturally creamy” plant-based cheese alternatives for the UK market, made from potatoes and root vegetables, as Grace Duncan reports for The Grocer. The brand said it had created a new technique for its manufacture, which made the cheese alternatives less oily than many other vegan cheeses in the market.
Today Lamb Weston / Meijer released its Sustainability Report 2021-2022. The company says it made good progress on the three key challenges through which it believes it can make the greatest contribution, as it strives to achieve its sustainability agenda and create positive impact from potato to plate.
Throughout 2022, potato growers in the EU were impacted by higher production costs, largely from energy, fertiliser and transportation. As Alice Witchalls reports in a news story for Mintec, higher costs are weighing on growers’ profit margins and are driving the cost of cultivation and storage to unsustainable levels. There is a risk that in consecutive seasons some farmers will opt to grow alternative crops.
Higher Russet potato pricing could help demand for potatoes in other colors, David Moquist of North Dakota based O. C. Schulz & Sons told FreshPlaza’s Astrid Van Den Broek. “Russet pricing is as high as it’s been for a long time and Russets are the largest part of the potato supply in the country,” says Moquist. Moquist says demand for yellows continues to grow year over year.
A Scottish potato grower found that investing in better air flow in his stores, had reaped major benefits for crop quality and energy costs, while also reducing the environmental impact, as John Sleigh reports for The Scottish Farmer. James Fairlie, who grows potatoes at Kirkton of Monikie, in Angus, recently had air curtains fitted to two of his stores and is already noticing a difference in air flow, energy use and quality of his crop.
An Australia-wide shortage has led some cafés and restaurants to temporarily substitute frozen potato chips [fries] with sweet potato, or take it off the menu altogether, while one major supermarket has introduced limits on the number of bags customers can buy, as Amy Hall reports for SBS News.
Tong Engineering is pleased to announce its appointment as UK distributor for Dutch palletising solutions manufacturer Verbruggen. “Verbruggen is renowned for manufacturing first-class palletising and stacking solutions with excellent product support. We have successfully collaborated on a number of projects with Verbruggen in the past,” says Simon Lee, Sales Director at Tong Engineering.
