Aardappelketen uit Rusland

When looking for evidence of a changing global order, consider the potato. Russia is currently experiencing record shortages of this widely consumed staple food.

There is a potato shortage in Russia, prices have increased by 173%. To contain them, the Russian Federation is buying potatoes in Mongolia, after purchases in Belarus and China.

According to Russia’s Federal Statistics Service, the surge in potato prices is the steepest among all tracked food products. The spike follows an already dramatic increase in 2024 due to poor harvests, compounding food inflation and putting more pressure on Russian households.

The delivery of Chinese potatoes to Primorsky Krai has been resumed. From March 20 to March 26, the first batch of Chinese potatoes weighing 87.4 tons arrived, the Primorsky Interregional Department of Rosselkhoznadzor reported.

A deal to export 2,000t of Scottish seed potatoes to Russia has been scrapped by PepsiCo following criticism of the arrangement. The food and drinks company said "a couple of lorries" had already left Scottish farms this week, but following discussion with growers, the decision had been made to stop future shipments.

Earlier today, McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski announced in an email to staff and franchisees that McDonald's will temporarily close its restaurants and pause operations in Russia.

In the Russian potato market, the upward trend in prices continues, and they just reached a record level over the past few years, analysts of the EastFruit project report.

A USD 30 million warehouse for potato storage was built in the Industrial and Logistic Park of Novosibirsk Oblast (Russia) to supply the potato chips plant, which is currently under construction.

Los proveedores de patatas de Lay han completado su campaña de siembra de primavera. En esta temporada agrícola, la siembra se realizó en un área de aproximadamente 19 mil hectáreas para Pepsico.

Less than a year after the opening of the World-class Scientific Center 'Agrotechnologies for the Future', Russian scientists had a breakthrough: the first-ever vertical farm with dynamic LED lighting.

In Russia, HZPC is using an unconventional strategy to secure its potato trade for the future: in 2019, a small breeding company was set up to provide Russian contract growers with pre-basic seed potatoes. In 2020, the production of mini-tubers was added too.

The company Razdolie LLC was founded in 2008, but received a new round in development in 2015 with the arrival of a young and progressive management team.

Together with a leading processor a greenfield project was developed in Russia, where Tolsma-Grisnich will supply potato receiving, handling and storage equipment.

EastFruit analysts predict that Russia may sharply increase the volume of imports of potatoes from Egypt in the 2020/21 season.

The Potato Union of Russia sent a letter to the Association of Retail Companies (AKORT) and the Union of Independent Networks (SNS), in which it proposed introducing “economy-class” tubers into the assortment.

According to the Ministry of Investments, Industry and Science of the Moscow Region, the tenth production line was launched at the PepsiCo enterprise in the Kashirsky District (Frito Lay Manufacturing LLC). It will produce Lay's ® chips. The production capacity of the line is more than 5 thousand tons of finished products per year.

In the first nine months of this year, Russia exported 254,8 thousand tons of potatoes (food and seed), which is almost 36% more than in the same period last year.

Since the start of autumn, potato producers in the regions of Russia have been facing many challenges, new and old. In the Russian Federation, the average annual volume of potatoes used for food purposes is estimated to be at 13-14 million tons, which makes potato one of the most important crops in Russia. In this article, we present information about the potato situation in various regions of Russia.