Skip to main content

- Advertisement -

Maine Farmers Exchange: 2024 potato crop brings excellent quality

By
Chris Koger

Potato distributor Maine Farmers Exchange, in Presque Isle, ME, coordinates with dozens of farms and packers to ensure its customers are receiving the volume and varieties they need.

Beyond tablestock potatoes, MFX distributes seed potatoes and varieties for processing. Vice President Bob Davis said the company purchases tablestock and processing potatoes from up to 50 farms and packers in the U.S. and Canada.  Seed supplies come from Maine, several Midwestern and Western states and Canada.

Davis said the Caribou Russet, released by the University of Maine and the Maine Potato Board in 2015, has become very popular, especially in New England, and Norkotah Russets and Goldrush varieties also see strong demand in the Northeast. Overall, Russets and yellow varieties have seen planting increases in Maine in recent years, he said.

A post-Thanksgiving assessment at MFX showed that demand was “fair,” but not strong as initially expected, and Davis has hopes it’s not an indication of the Christmas pull. He said that specific varieties typically don’t see sales spikes leading up to holidays, and that it’s influenced by what retailers feature.

Davis described Maine’s potato growing season as “wonderful.” Although a lack of rain late in the season cut expected yields, they were above average. Maine averaged 340 cwt. per acre in the previous three seasons, according to a September report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

“Quality was excellent across the board this year as the spuds went into storage,” Davis said. “The dry weather in September suppressed any disease and quality damage.”

Even with a drop in projected yields, he said the tablestock supply will meet demand.

“Tablestock has good supplies, and some extra processing varieties will end up in the tablestock market,” he said.

MFX’s potato supply for processors is also adequate, but some seed varieties might be short. On the whole, there will be good volume to carry supplies to next season. Davis said the company is selling more frozen potato products and would like to expand those sales.

By the end of the first week in October, most Maine potato fields had been harvested, except for some late varieties that needed longer to mature.

“They were on the ground a week to 10 days early in the spring planting season, so we were early with the harvest,” Davis said.

Personnel changes
Dan Peers, who was the sales manager at MFX since late 2013, has been promoted to president. Peers served in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recognizes MFX as a veteran-owned business.

MFX is also in the SBA’s HUBZone program, which “fuels small business growth in historically underutilized business zones,” with a goal of awarding at least 3 percent of federal contract dollars to HUBZone-certified companies each year, according to the SBA.

Davis, the former president of MFX, is now vice president.

Tagged in:

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -