Wisconsin storage potato season progressing smoothly
Wisconsin storage potato season progressing smoothly
Wisconsin’s storage potato season is progressing smoothly.
“Things are moving pretty well," said Dave Cofer, owner of Farmers Potato Exchange Inc., located in Antigo, WI. "It’s a decent crop. We have high quality and movement has been pretty good.” He expects his firm to have supplies until the first of April.
Michael Gatz, new business director of Bushmans' Inc., which is headquartered in Mukwonago, WI, was also positive about this winter’s Wisconsin potato deal.
Gatz works from the firm’s Milwaukee-area office but spoke to The Produce News from Orlando, FL, Jan. 8 as he attended Potato Expo 2015. He said the casual national potato grower consensus in Orlando was that potato prices in coming weeks would remain “low to moderate,” although there had recently been a mild price uptick.
Idaho’s potato fields produced an inordinately high volume of small sizes in 2014, and “there are not a lot of 40-, 50- and 60-count sizes” coming from Idaho, he said. This was creating a large supply of consumer pack bags for the country. But Gatz said Wisconsin does have larger-size potatoes to suit the foodservice buyers and can buoy the Wisconsin market.
Bushmans’ will be shipping from its storages through June, Gatz indicated. The 2014 crop so far has held its quality well and Gatz had no reason to believe that quality would decrease as the storage season progresses.