Photo credit: Gilly on Unsplash
Bad weather has damaged the North American potato crop to the point where a shortage of French fries looms.
Bloomberg reports that, due to unseasonable cold, snow and excessive rain, the U.S. potato crop forecast for 2019 is down to about 420 million hundredweight (42 billion pounds). The USDA forecast is for domestic potato production to drop 6.1% this year, to the lowest since 2010. Canada is similarly affected, with Manitoba, where potatoes are a major crop, seeing 18% of its planting area go unharvested.
The drop in production comes when demand for French fries is at a peak, helped by an expansion of processing capacity in Canada. Another problem is that the erratic weather is causing potatoes to come up smaller than normal, below the length preferred for fries.
