Hanny Farms

Nothing in life is certain, as you're going to hear from potato farmer Merrill Hanny of Hanny Farms in Shelley, ID.Idaho. Looked like it was a slam dunk, home run. Everything lined up and the Idaho growers looked very positive towards having a favorable market return. The demand for potatoes was good. De-Hy products was good. Restaurants were booming. The whole sector of the economy was in balance and people were spending money and particularly going out to eat and enjoying social events. It was just like an overnight avalanche of panic and extreme caution and life, as we have known it to that point, changed dramatically. One move in this potato world affects another.

And so because of this pandemic, the friers, the French fry producing entities panicked and they took a lot of their inventory and dropped it into the freshDe-Hy markets. So they oversupplied those markets in order to cut their own inventory and not have to fill their freezers up. Additionally, they have reduced contracts for fries about 20 percent. And so it's just a double whammy in that sector of the potato world, which then trickles over floods over into the fresh and De-Hy industries as well. We're struggling.