Consumer Attitudes & Usage
The Consumer Attitudes and Usage online study is conducted annually to gather insights on American consumers, evaluating their attitudes towards foods—potatoes in particular—and their dietary choices.
Source: Potatoes USA
Potato Market Update
Market pricing is steady with demand up in all regions due to the upcoming Memorial Day holiday. It still appears that all shipping regions will have enough product in storage until new crop begin in late July to early August. No outages are expected like experienced last year. Quality remains excellent in all regions; all seem happy with the current pack-outs. Planting is 95 percent complete in all areas. The dryer-than-normal spring has allowed all growing regions to complete planting earlier than usual.
Storage crop yellow potatoes are still available but in a limited way in Idaho, North Dakota, Minnesota and Canada. New crop is finishing in Florida, with growers on the Eastern Shore, California and Arizona to begin shortly. Quality is average on the old crop for this time of the year. Storage crop requires a high amount of grade out.
Storage crop white potatoes are practically complete in all shipping areas. If anything remains, it would be in the Northeast, with most of the supply shipping locally. New crops of white potatoes are available in the Southeast and California.
Storage crop fingerling potato supplies are practically all done. The only product available minimally is in Colorado and Idaho. New crop fingerlings will become available in California very shortly; demand for new crop is high, which in turn is causing pricing to be above average.
Onion Market Update
A new crop of onions has started in the Imperial Valley. They have availability on yellow, red, and white onions. Demand is excellent for new crop, and the market is beginning to move up on yellows as the demand remains high. The overall quality of the new crop has been excellent, and transportation has been no issue this season.
New Mexico will start with a new crop at the beginning of June.
Idaho and the Columbia Basin have finished planting and are experiencing an excellent growing season with warm weather.
