The value of U.S. potato and potato product exports reached $1.8 billion for the July 2017-June 2018 marketing year. That’s the highest ever for the U.S. and an increase of 2.37 percent compared to the previous marketing year.
The biggest gain came in fresh exports, up 8.5 percent, with dehy up 6 percent and frozen up 1.8 percent. The only decline was a drop of 4 percent in the value of chip exports.
However, the fresh weight equivalent volume of exports declined by 0.86 percent to 3,246,830 metric tons or 71.6 million hundredweight. This represents approximately 20 percent of total U.S. potato production for the marketing year. The only products to show export volume increases were dehydrated potatoes and seed potatoes, each up 2 percent. The fresh potatoes category, which includes table-stock and chip-stock, had the steepest decline at 7 percent. Frozen export volume was down just 0.1 percent.
Figures are compiled by Trade Stats Northwest.
