Hungary faces shortage of potatoes amid uncertainty under food price cap

Hungarian households won’t be able to purchase home-grown potatoes as reserves have run out after bad harvest. Potato shortage could become a reality if imports won’t meet domestic demand. The price cap makes life even more difficult for traders.

Due to bad harvest, which also affected Western Europe, Hungary has run out of home-grown potatoes by the start of February, agrarszektor.hu reports. There’s uncertainty, whether foreign imports could satisfy the demand.

Shortly after onions, another Hungarian staple food item could be in danger according to the National Potato Product Council (OBTT). Since 9 November 2022, table potatoes are affected by the national price cap.

At that time, the food price freeze was only due to expire on 31 December but was extended at the end of the year until 30 April 2023. For table potatoes, however, there were questions about how long domestic stocks would be sufficient, as the press officer of the OBTT told Agrárszektor.

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Éva Kulich said that home-grown product was still available at the beginning of January. However, they were gone by the beginning of February. A complete change in the shops’ offers is now expected. Although the Council has firm contracts in places with importers, two factors are endangering Hungarian potato import.

Firstly, traders are losing out on imports, as the increased purchase prices and transport costs cannot be passed on to the industry, as table potatoes are still under the price cap until the end of April. Secondly, potato harvest in Western Europe was also lower. Overall, the potato harvest was 8-12 percent lower than in a normal year, and this will have an impact on the quantities available for imports.

The expert stressed that the end of May is the earliest period when Hungarian products can start to appear in shops. In addition to the possible lower availability of stocks, there could be another difficulty. Red B-type potatoes, which account for 80-85 percent of Hungarian consumption, are not so popular in Western Europe. Only farmers with strong trading connections to Central Europe plant this specific type of product.

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Source: agrarszektor.hu