Food retail stores and potato chips producers in South Africa have been hit by a shortage of potatoes during the past couple of months.
The shortage resulted in an increase in the price of potatoes which in turn has been affecting consumers.
Food retail stores and potato chips producers in South Africa have been hit by a shortage of potatoes during the past couple of months.
The shortage resulted in an increase in the price of potatoes which in turn has been affecting consumers.
Potatoes SA Industry information manager, Pieter van Zyl acknowledged the shortage and attributed it to this year’s cold winter. He said farmers nationwide had lost about 6000 hectares worth of crops, which is 12 percent of their production. “The past couple of months have been very challenging for the markets, that is why the price of potatoes increased. However we have recovered during the last couple of weeks.”
He said the average price for a 10 kg pocket of potatoes is R33. The recent shortage is the first of its kind since the country suffered a severe shortage in 2007 due to drought. Dudley Sparg, the branch manager of Grahamstown’s Fruit and Veg City said his store had experienced a shortage during the past three weeks, however “things were back to normal now. The price should retail between R45 and R50 for 10kg. Previously it was R70 for a 10kg bag.”
A spokesperson for the Shoprite Group confirmed the shortage and said their supermarkets had been informed by suppliers of potato chips and fresh potatoes that the industry was experiencing “a short term potato shortage due to a severe cold winter during the growing season that negatively influenced tonnage per hectare harvested." She reports that: "The season’s yield is also smaller because producers planted less than last year, due mainly to increased costs of production per hectare and the difficulty in securing capital.”
She added: “The cold not only affected yield but the sizes of the potatoes harvested, there being more smaller sizes than the medium or large potatoes, resulting in stronger competition for the medium and large potatoes on the market.
“Because of the increased demand and the high prices on offer it takes farmers but a few days to harvest and market what they would normally supply in a week, and therefore very few potatoes are getting to market by the end of the week, causing regional spikes in availability and price of fresh potatoes.”
She noted that the shortage has influenced potato chips processors which led to a decrease in quantities of some brands. “Suppliers to the Shoprite Group have started producing chips again this week and stock levels are expected to increase in the coming weeks,” she concluded.
Pick n Pay’s general manager for fresh produce, Warren Lupke said: “The fresh produce experienced a price hike due to the shortages of potatoes but [we]had sufficient amount of stock to supply to our consumers during this period.”
He said “For the past three weeks we have seen the price reducing as the volume of stock availability keeps increasing.”
Numerous attempts to obtain comment from potato chips producer, Simba, were unsuccessful.
