Bélgica: French fries potato price drops below 20 euros

t is striking that the listing committee is slightly raising the sentiment meter in the market. Where the market was labelled as weak in the past two weeks, there is now an upgrade to a calm market. This means that supply and demand are nicely in balance again.

Due to the significant reductions in the past three weeks, the price formation of free fries potatoes has fallen far below that of contract potatoes. For contract potatoes of the Fontane variety, the price in this period is around 25 euros per 100 kilos.

This brings an end for the time being to a short period in which free prices far exceeded contract prices. For Fontane, the main variety in potato processing, around 30 euros per 100 kilos were paid at the end of January and beginning of February.

Potato futures market

The potato futures market in Leipzig, Germany, has fallen to around 21 euros per 100 kilos. The peak was just above 35 euros per 100 kilos in early February. The falling market resulted in more turnover on the futures market in late February and early March. In the last week of February, 176 contracts of 25 tonnes were traded. This week, 95 contracts changed hands.

The underlying value of the potato futures contracts, the cash settlement, fell this week by 4.40 euros to 21.70 euros per 100 kilos. That is exactly 10 euros lower than the highest level that was reached in mid-February at 31.70 euros per 100 kilos.

It is remarkable that the differences per country in the contribution of the cash settlement are enormous. In France, the price level has plummeted to 18.10 euros. The Dutch contribution is 9 euros above that with 27.20 euros in the past week. At the beginning of January, the price difference between France and the Netherlands was still 1.60 euros per 100 kilos.