Potato prices may dip as Bengal plans stock cut

Potato prices may drop as the West Bengal government is all set to offload 1 million tonne (mt) in the market by next week to rapidly cut excess stocks. Output in India’s second largest potato growing state doubled this year to touch almost 10 mt. But branded snack companies such as ITC and Pepsi will see no dip in raw material costs as the prices of the specialised varieties they buy remain steady.

Talking to ET, Mr Mortaza Hossain, West Bengal’s minister of agricultural marketing, said: “We have decided to offload the potato that we had asked consumer cooperatives under the West Bengal State Consumers Cooperative Federation (Confed) to procure. The offloading will begin from next week. We are currently working on the model that we will use to offload these potatoes.”