Source: Potatoes USA
John Toaspern, chief marketing officer at Potatoes USA, recently provided insight to the potato industry from this year’s Sales and Utilization study of U.S. potatoes. The video above will help you better understand how and where potatoes are being sold in the U.S.
The Sales and Utilization report highlights the total U.S. potato utilization during the July 2019 to June 2020 marketing year (MY20). It shows the share of total utilization by product including frozen, fresh, chips, dehydrated, refrigerated, and others.
“With everything that has occurred this past marketing year, it is very important for us to understand what has happened with the sales of potatoes in the US market and how the crop was utilized based on an analysis of potatoes and products sold at retail and food service and accounting for the volume of US exports and imports,” Toasperm says.
“There was a 5 percent decline in the utilization of potatoes grown in the US during the July 2019 through June 2020 marketing year this decline occurred despite the increase in sales through retail as the 13 reduction in sales to the food service sector and the two percent decline in exports was greater than the retail sales growth.
“In terms of utilization of the U.S. crop, the decline was further compounded by the seven percent increase in imports it’s important to note that this decline occurred at the end of the marketing year as sales to both food service and retail as well as exports were up for the July through December 2019 period.
“The disruptions to the food service market and loss of exports this past spring resulted in roughly 1.5 million pounds of potatoes being diverted from the market through donations, giveaways, cattle feed and in some cases even destruction. Frozen continues to be the largest use of US grown potatoes, accounting for 40 percent with fresh at 25 and chips at 23.”