The potato harvest in the EU-4, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany that supply Europe's frozen French fries industry, is set to fall by almost a quarter this season to about 20.8 million tonnes, according to DCA Market Intelligence.

Both area and yield fell. After the large 2025 crop and a difficult export market for frozen fries, growers cut processing-potato acreage by around 15% in the Netherlands, 16.6% in Belgium, 10% in France and 11% in Germany. Hot, dry weather then cut yields, by about 14% on average in the Netherlands, DCA estimates.

Much of the 2026 crop was contracted months before harvest at lower prices. "For early-season deliveries, contract prices are around 25% below last year's levels," said John Ramaker, potato market analyst at DCA, with prices for later storage deliveries fixed roughly 15% to 17% lower.

That leaves growers squeezed. "Growers are harvesting significantly fewer tonnes per hectare this year, while a large share of production was contracted earlier at lower prices," Ramaker said, so higher prices for the small volume on the open market do not make up for the lost yield.

Further down the chain the effect is muted: potatoes are only one part of the cost of fries, alongside processing, energy, frying oil, labour, packaging, transport and cold storage, so neither cheaper contracts nor dearer spot potatoes pass straight into retail prices.

Photo: Silver Spoon / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Source: AgroPages