6-27 IAT Spud Contracts

 The price of potatoes.

 I recently called Frank Muir, executive director of the Idaho Potato Commission or IPC and I asked about contract prices and where he thought potato producers might be sitting as they nurture their 2013 crop. “Are all of the potatoes contracted? You know I cannot speak to what percent is contracted. Obviously there is an effort to keep that confidential. Each of the processor’s contract with the growers and work through their individual processes to do that. Lessons learned from last year, I think there will be less acres over all versus last year’s plantings. I think there will be a percentage of decrease which I won’t quote. I definitely think acreage will be down versus last year. As we are coming out of last year’s harvest, as we finish up this crop year, we are seeing prices not only stabilize but increase and the IPC implemented what we call a bin promotion just a few weeks ago to focus on moving a lot of the larger, profile size potatoes in retail and that seemed to be very successful. As a result of that we have seen the supplies even out and more equal demand and as a result the prices have increased and I think we will continue to see that as we finish off this crop year at the end of August.